


I've Got You

by Adorkable757



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: F/M, I wrote this in college, Jongdae is an annoying shit but its bc he likes you uwu, a bit of comedy, a light read tbh only mild angst, enemies to lovers??? kind of?, fluffy jongdae, lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 40,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22025296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adorkable757/pseuds/Adorkable757
Summary: You work for SM Entertainment as it’s head Public Relations Specialist, and Jongdae is one client that you have to deal with far too often. Sometimes, you realize, he isn't as bad as you made him out to be.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. 1...

**Author's Note:**

> Hiii I wrote this story YEARS ago but never posted it on here, and I decided I wanted to edit it and make it something I wouldn't cringe at any time I tried to reread it. So enjoy a bit of boyfriend Jongdae and me living out my ideal relationship with him through reader insert lmaooooo

You hate working for an entertainment company.

Correction. You fucking _hate_ working for SM Entertainment. You definitely thought that this is what you wanted to do with your life while you were still in college. Now, you’re a graduate, stuck working for a company that provides you with more stress than any late 20-year-old should have to deal with.

Yeah, you get to work with celebrities. And yeah, you get to live in the exciting work environment that you dreamed of as an undergraduate with hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Work is never boring. 

But that’s just it. It’s _never_ boring. You _never_ have a slow day.

Any time that you think you have a chance to breathe, someone will waltz in looking worried and apologetic, telling you “we’ve got another crisis”. Whether that someone got followed into a club they (in the first place) shouldn’t have been in and got photos taken of them, someone got their dick stuck in something, or more often times than not, they got their dick stuck in something (read: someone) at the club, it’s your job to handle all of these oh-so-fun incidents.

Damage control.

That’s what you do. That’s what your job title should have been. All the messes, all the mishaps, all the misunderstandings - you’re the first on the scene to get the facts, write the press release and find a way to spin the story in a way that doesn’t make your clients look like the dumbasses they all are. You keep them from losing their jobs, and more importantly you keep yourself from losing _your_ job. There’s no way in hell you’re going to let some stupid celebrity mistake be the reason you lose your first steady flow of income.

Not when you’re getting paid as much as you are nearly straight out of university.

So, you know everything. You have to. To fix it you have to hear the truth straight from the horse’s mouth. You probably know more about all of these idols’ personal lives than you’d ever like to.

One client though, one client in particular is slowly but surely driving you to an early grave.

Jongdae.

EXO’s Chen.

Jesus Christ the kid is a saint on camera, but if you had a dollar -scratch that, a _penny_ \- for every _god damned_ issue of his that you’ve had to deal with, you’d be able to retire on an island and never have to deal with P.R. ever again.

You really should have signed a contract that paid you by project instead of in scheduled time intervals.

It’s a Monday today, and walking into the large building you can already smell the sheer amount of bullshit that you will have to deal with after the, fairly quiet, weekend.

Maybe you should have just majored in Chinese like you wanted to 8 years ago and worked as a translator instead.

It’s been 5 years now. 5 years that you’ve been working for SM as its main public relations representative. You started out under some older guy at first, but after a huge lawsuit was filed against the company, that he unfortunately wasn’t able to handle, finally blew over, you got bumped up.

Let’s just say that after watching all of that go down, you try to crush the lawsuits before they can even reach that level of media coverage.

You graduated college wanting to be a true professional. You know, the good guy. You wanted to show the truth to the public. You wanted to prove not everyone in your line of work was full of lies. Boy, that dream died quickly.

After a particular incident where one SM idol -who shall remain nameless for the sake of confidentiality- was caught in another country in a huge orgy with a team of Russian trapeze artists, you learned sometimes the truth is better unsaid. To this day, everyone still thinks that he just went to the circus and got injured after a flip gone wrong by one of the performers.

It took you a solid 3 weeks to get everyone to believe that shit.

You’re a god damned miracle worker honestly.

Walking into your silent office, you throw your purse into one of the chairs in front of your desk before flopping in the larger one at the desk’s head. Your name is engraved on a small silver plaque for everyone to see.

It feels gratuitous given everyone here knows who you are at this point. You _are_ basically their caretaker. 

The silence in your office is all too short as it’s interrupted by the sound of knocking. Your newest secretary walks in with a nervous smile and a stack of papers. She’s only been here a month so far and is still terrified of you. It might have started when she walked in for her first day, and you were on the verge of physically assaulting Jongdae after another one of his “conquests” got away before signing a nondisclosure agreement. He was hiding behind your desk as you pitched different objects at his head.

You liked the new secretary so far though. She's far more eager to be here than your last one, some kid from Yonsei who thought his internship was supposed to be a walk in the park and half-assed any project you had him work on. He didn't last 3 weeks. 

Secretary Yoon works hard. She’s a university student who wants to work for JYP. She’s shadowing you in a way. She’s kindhearted. Bright. Hopeful for the future. Reminds you of a younger version of yourself.

God it’s going to be sad watching that excitement fade from her eyes.

“Sehun is here to see you,” she says softly once you've given her your full attention.

Sehun? Sehun never causes problems. If anything he’s known to not tell on anyone when they fuck up. A loyal kid. What could he possibly want?

She leaves and the said man walks in, all broad shoulders, and angry eyebrows in his practice clothes. Oh shit, they have a comeback coming soon. You need to remember to have someone leak the audio to one of their songs…or maybe even edit the audio to one of the previous songs so that their fans can go to town hyping themselves up with theories for the official comeback.

Sehun addresses you by your first name.

“Sit,” is all you say. He fidgets. “What happened?”

His eyebrows loosen and his entire expression shifts in the way that makes him look like an entirely different person. Like the actual youngest member of his group. “I just wanted to come and tell you this before you heard it from someone else. And I don’t want you to be mad at me or at Jongdae because it’s not his fault I promise!”

There’s his name again.

You groan in misery. “What did he do now?”

Sehun sits up in his seat. “Chanyeol and I were going to go get food, but Baekhyun and Jongdae wanted to come along and we already know that we shouldn’t travel in big groups out in public, but Jongdae told us that maybe we shouldn’t go with any of our managers because that would make us more suspicious. And Chanyeol was like ‘yeah’, but Baekhyun said that it was a bad idea. But then Jongdae said we could just go eat somewhere farther away and we wouldn’t get noticed, so Baekhyun caved and we went.”

You snap your fingers impatiently. “I need you to speed this up. What exactly do Jongdae _do_? What do I need to be on the lookout for?”

He blinks rapidly and leans back in his seat before sighing. “Jongdae bought a fleshlight at a uh…at a-”

“At a sex shop,” you fill in tiredly.

“Yeah,” he swallows hard and his adam’s apple bobs. “He bought one as a joke and we all signed it because we thought it would be funny, but then he uhm…he left it on the train,” he finishes sheepishly.

It’s Monday. And you _already_ have to deal with a lost fleshlight on a train. Maybe you should start naming these cases like Scooby Doo episodes. Scooby Doo and the Case of the Fucking-Missing-Fleshlight-On-The-Train. Pinching the bridge of your nose to fight of an impending headache you give Sehun a tired look. “Send Jongdae to my office.”

“He’s not going to get in trouble, right?”

“Yes, he most _definitely_ is.”

“But…not a lot of trouble right?”

“If you mean getting kicked out of the group trouble then no. A lost fleshlight with almost half of EXO’s signatures on it is not something Lee Sooman needs to hear about. Nor is it something I’m willing to lose my job over. Just…send Jongdae up.”

You are going to strangle him when he gets here.


	2. 2...

_Don’t kill him you need this job. Don’t kill him you need this job. Don’t kill him you need this job._

You try to keep your expression neutral, but your eyebrow betrays you and twitches in irritation. 5 minutes now you’ve been glaring at Jongdae sitting in the seat across from you. 5 minutes now you’ve been tapping a pen into your palm trying not to crush it in your hardening grip.The last thing you need is dark blue ink stains on your new suit and carpet alongside the blood you're going to spill after stabbing the man in front of you.

You aren’t even that mad at him really. This is nothing compared to a lot of the stuff you’ve had to make right. It’s just the sheer amount of times the two of you have been in this exact same situation, with this exact same setup that’s made gotten you so angry.

And he even has the audacity to avoid eye contact and look apologetic.

You put the pen down on the desk and huff before leaning forward on your elbows.

“A fleshlight on the train? Really Jongdae? Really?”

Suddenly he comes to life. “It was just a joke! I swear I left in my bag afterwards. I think Chanyeol took it out trying to frame me!”

You pick the pen back up and point it at him threateningly, “Don’t try pulling Chanyeol into this you bastard.”

You hold back a sigh as the sound of his voice stretching out your name in a whine reaches your ears.

“No, you stop that right now. Your whining does nothing for me. You aren’t getting out of this. You bought it, and you brought it on the train. At _least_ tell me that you have the train company and number so that I can contact them?”

“Yes!” he whips out his phone and start mumbling under his breath about not being a total idiot. You bite back the instinct to call him a liar. “Ah! I did,” he smiles triumphantly and hands his phone over to you so that you can jot down the details.

You scribble it down on a sticky note and smack it on your desktop computer harder than necessary just to make a point of how _pissed_ you are. “I swear to god, I know you all can’t date like normal people and your hand doesn’t always do the trick but-”

“I WASN’T ACTUALLY GOING TO USE IT!”

“THEN WHAT WERE YOU GOING TO USE IT FOR JONGDAE? A CUP COVER!? TABLE DECORATION!? FLESHLIGHTS DON’T HAVE MUCH USE OUTSIDE OF IT’S MAIN PURPOSE AS A THING TO SHOVE YOUR DICK IN-”

“WHOA HOLD ON! STOP! I’M A GUY I ALREADY KNOW WHAT ITS FOR, YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME!”

“GOOD! THEN NEXT TIME MAYBE YOU’LL THINK TWICE BEFORE BUYING A GOD DAMNED FLESHLIGHT AND LEAVING IT ON A GOD DAMNED TRAIN!! IT BETTER HAVE AT _LEAST_ BEEN A GOOD ONE!!!”

“Uhm…” your eyes snap to the doorway where Minho, one of your artists, is standing in front of your scared secretary. He’s holding a fist in front of his mouth and looks clearly amused. He clears his throat and drops his hand once both you and Jongdae have taken notice of him.

“Leave Jongdae. I don’t even want to look at you any longer,” you grunt out. When did you stand up? A bit confused, but more aggravated, you sit back in your chair. Jongdae frowns and only makes it two steps before he turns back around with mock confusion.

“Wait, how do you even know so much about fleshlights in the first pla-” you pitch your mini-stapler at his hip before he can finish his question. He dodges with a laugh and escapes through the door.

Oh great, here comes the headache.

“Sorry about that, I wasn’t actually going to kill him. Didn’t mean to scare you,” you try to reassure your secretary.

Minho takes the seat in front of your desk and your secretary gives you a small smile before closing the door. “So, how _do_ you know so much about-”

“Please,” you groan. “Give me a break just this once.”

“Sounded like a fun conversation.”

“Of course. _Every_ conversation with Jongdae is _fun_ ,” you reply dryly. You take a sip of water from the bottle on your desk and massage your temples. Is it still Monday? “Is there anything that I can help you with?”

“No. I just wanted to make sure you were alive. Nari heard the yelling and I was walking by so she grabbed me to interrupt,” he explains. Nari…Secretary Yoon, that’s her first name right?

“I am…as fine as I can be with everything that’s happening.”

“When’s the last time you took a break?”

You reply with no hesitation, “5 years ago.” You know where this is headed because you’ve heard the same things from your friends and your parents. Take a break. You’re young why are you so stressed? Maybe you should find another job.

No!

You got here in your own, and you aren’t going to let a little pressure scare you off. Not now, not in another 5 years.

“I’m still young. I’m not even 30 there’s no reason for you to worry about me. I know when my breaking point is, and trust me I’m not there yet.”

He nods slowly and stands up. “Still try to take a break every now and then, yeah?”

“Gotcha,” you smile in appreciation. Once he leaves, your secretary scrambles back in with a huge cup of coffee and an equally huge look of panic in her eyes. You didn’t even drink coffee before taking this job. 4 years of college and finals and yet this was what's made you resort to drinking the bean water to stay alive.

She places the coffee on the desk, “I’m so sorry I tried to tell him that he couldn’t come in, but he still listened in at the door and I only manged to-”

She jumps and stops mid-sentence as the door slams back open.

You roll your eyes and down a gulp of the scalding hot coffee. “What _now_ Jongdae it hasn’t even been 30 minutes!” your voice comes out raspy after being burned by the liquid.

“Minho hyung is right,” is all he says before coming to lean across your desk. Nari backs up and Jongdae beams at her, making the poor girl scurry from the room with flaming cheeks. She still hasn’t gotten use to all of the celebrities yet. Especially not those in her favorite group.

“Why’d you do that to her, you _know_ that she likes you guys…”

“I’m not her bias though.”

“How do you know who her bias is?”

“I saw her phone background. It was an extremely HD picture of a shirtless Minseok hyung,” he answers casually.

“Why were you even looking at her- you know what never mind. I don’t want to know. Why are you here again?” you ask bored.

He narrows his eyes and then falls back in to the chair that might as well have his name and ass imprint tattooed to its seat.

“You’re too uptight,” refreshing. You can always count on Jongdae to tell you the exact things you already know but don’t want to hear.

“I wouldn’t be so _uptight_ if you weren’t constantly making my life difficult,” you huff and give him an angry frown.

He shakes his head, “Okay but I still don’t understand why no one else got in trouble for the whole train thing except for me. They were all there too.”

You arch an eyebrow and hold up 3 fingers. “Sehun is literally a child. He won’t do anything that will risk making you all mad at him so of course he went along with it, because _you_ suggested it.” You put down a finger. “Chanyeol is easily impressionable and can be convinced with little more than a reason and a pack of bubble tissues.” You fold your 2nd finger down.

“But Baekhyun-”

“- has a lot on his plate right now. I’m not going to scold him for something that was _mainly_ your fault, Jongdae.” You point the last finger in his direction. He pouts and sits back in the seat defeated.

Hoping that he’ll just leave at some point, you decide to ignore him and get to the work that you were doing earlier. Signing release forms and approving the outlines of future ideas for publicity stunts.

Ah, you need to check and see how Red Velvet’s popularity is looking after the Rookie release. It’s the latter end of the comeback, but you have high expectations. SM puts so much money in to them that they _have_ to have a good turnout.

You kind of wish some of that energy would go in to F(x). You’ve seen the unease in their fans as they wait for the long awaited comeback.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Why is he still _here_?

“No,” you tell him bluntly, not looking away from your computer screen.

He shifts in the chair and you hesitantly look up. “Why not?” he asks curiously. You hear the genuine curiosity in his voice and you immediately steel yourself for anything he may say or do with what you say next. “You seem like the type to have an equally stiff boyfriend-”

There’s the jab.

You sigh. “Is there any particular reason that you’re taking up oxygen in my office or are you just here because you like to annoy me?”

“Both,” he perks up with that wicked curled smile that makes his fans go crazy. “Or…maybe I just like you.”


	3. 3...

_“Or…maybe I just like you.”_

Honestly, that one took you by surprise.

And almost nothing takes you by surprise these days. You're entire career is built on out-surprising the element of surprise. Maybe it was the sudden way that he said it. Maybe it was the fact that his tone came across as genuinely honest. Maybe it was because it actually made your mind go fuzzy.

Your mind doesn’t do fuzzy.

Not when you have to constantly be paying attention to everyone and everything around you.

You couldn't think of what to say to that. You just stared at him. Open-mouthed looking like a total idiot in front of _Jongdae_ no less. He nearly lit up at your lack of response, and his eyes jotted across your face as if he was memorizing it and keeping this etched in his mind forever as proof that he actually stumped you for once.

It was when he started giggling that you finally remembered where you were. 

Work. 

That’s right you’re at work and you’re supposed to be scolding him and kicking him out of your office.

Quickly brushing off your brief moment of shock, you slap your business face back on and laugh sarcastically. “ _Wow_ , you’re funny. You almost had me there,” you admit monotonously. You refuse to show that he _really did_ have you there for a moment.

“I’m serious!” he tries, but you can detect the light mischief in his voice now. Ah, now this is familiar territory. 

“Yeah and I’m the bloody Queen of England. Get out of my office Jongdae. You’re in here more than I am,” you mutter bitterly. He sighs dramatically and stands from the chair.

“You’re no fun.” You give him a lifeless wave as he walks towards the door. You go back to starting your day’s work when you hear the door open but not close. Three seconds you wait. Then you finally look up to see if he actually left your door open, knowing that you can’t _stand_ it being partially open, only to see he’s still standing there. You catch his eyes and he startles in his spot as if not expecting you to find him still standing in your doorway.

“I uh-” he hesitates and his lips purse in thought. “Never mind, I’ll close this.” His voice is soft and, since you probably know him better than he knows himself, you know that he actually had something relevant to say. Your door closes with a click and you’re left with the sounds of your computer humming and birds chirping outside your window.

Somehow, you feel a bit lonely.

* * *

“Okay…call their other manager…no just tell him where they are so that he can get them the fuck out of there…yes they’re stuck…no I can’t go get them. I’m not getting paid to go and babysit the group that _you’re_ supposed to be keeping tabs on…you’re a bastard do you know that? They’re still _kids_ go get them before a sasaeng stabs one of them and uses their blood to make a fucking clone or something… _no Mark is not old enough to handle this he’s like 12. I don’t care if he’s the leader or the oldest or the whatever the fuck of the group he’s still a kid and he’s already in 13 god damned other units of NCT and if you don’t go pick them the fuck up right fucking now I’ll make sure to let your wife know about the 18-year-old mistress that you've been hiding for 4 and a half months now…_ okay I thought so. Go pick them up and send me picture evidence that they’re with you when you get them.” You press the end button and shove your phone back in your gym bag angrily.

You were here to work off some of the stress of the day, but now you just want to go home. A beer and a huge order of chicken sounds delicious right about now. You can skip one (read: yet another) day at the gym. It’s not like it’s been doing much for you outside of giving you a reason to say that you’re being “healthy”. You’ll be damned if you have to diet.

Shaking your head, you hike your bag higher up on your shoulder and turn away from the gym doors. You got dressed to work out for nothing, and it’s like midnight now so it’s going to be cold as shit outside. All of your warm clothes are inside your bag, but at this point you can’t be bothered to actually dig them out and put them on. 

So, you jog out of the building in nothing but sweats and a thermal shirt and jump into your car. The seats are cold after being in the dark parking deck. You turn up the heat and bounce in your seat to keep yourself somewhat warm while the car warms up.

 _Ping_.

“Fuck,” you reach across your car to dig through your bag for your cellphone. _Ping. Ping. Ping._ Your cellphone that is apparently being spammed with texts. You swipe the screen and type in the quick password before seeing 5 messages waiting to be read from 3 different people.

**From: The Bastard with the Child Girlfriend**

_Safe and sound._ (Read 12:12am)

Attached is a photo of the NCT Dream kids in the back of a van all on their cellphones. You don’t bother to reply.

**From: Kim Minseok**

_Emergency. I lost Jongdae._

_We were drinkin and he left??? Nt sure where he went??_ (Read 12:12am)

**From: Zhang Yixing**

_How do I fine dinosaur roles?_

_Find*_ (Read 12:13am)

You send Yixing a quick reply telling him to brush up on his English and then you might have a way for him to play a minor role in an American production that may need people to act, not as dinosaurs, but as people dealing with them.

And then you stare at the messages from Minseok. How did he lose a grown man? You text him and tell him to call him and that you’ll drive around their dorm to see if he’s still wandering on the streets.

The heat in your car fogs over all of the windows, and just before you go to wipe at the one on your left, your phone pings again.

**From: Kim Minseok**

_Said he went to the gym._ (Read 12:17am)

Okay, that’s fine. You don’t have to go on a manhunt anymore. He’s just working out…probably drunk…like a dumbass, but who are you to judge him? As long as he gets home safe then you have no reason to concern yourself with the matter.

You swipe at your window so that you can see outside. You barely hold in a scream when the first thing you see is cheekbones and flushed cheeks and that curled smiled.

“Jongdae!?”

“Hi,” he says with a wave on the other side of the window. You can see his breath in the air. You can’t tell if the red in his face is from the cold or from the drinking that Minseok told you about. You squint at him and look around your car stupefied. This is the parking deck. Not the gym.

Did he _drive_ here?

“Did you drive here?!” you yell. He blinks slowly and you watch as he tries to understand the question. Okay, so definitely drunk. You unlock all of your doors and push open the one that Jongdae was leaning on. He stumbles backwards.

You grab his wrist and pull him to the passenger seat of your car so that he isn’t standing out in the cold.

“Did you dri-”

“No, I…walked,” he says slowly, a pout settled comfortably on his face. It’s not hard to hear the slight slur in his words, nor is it difficult to smell the light tinge of soju on his breath. He isn’t hammered, not at all, but he is still relatively inebriated. “I’m tired…”

“Well then you shouldn’t have walked here from your dorm. Isn’t there a gym there?”

“It’s not as good as this one though…”

You sigh and start up your car.

_Ping._

You swipe at your phone and see a text from one of Jongdae’s managers. A simple “ _Don’t bring him to the apartment”_ is all it says. You glance at Jongdae who is looking at his own phone confused.

“How’d your manager know that you were with me?”

He looks away from the bright screen with confusion still on his face. “I told Minseok that I found you…and you were gonna…take me home, but…” he looks at his phone again and goes silent. You peek over his shoulder to see a blurry picture of a group of girls wandering outside of the dorm. You immediately recognize 3 of their faces. They’ve been trying to find EXO’s dorm for months now.

“How’d they even _find_ it this time?” you wonder aloud. You snatch the phone from his hand and zoom in on the shaky photo from Minseok. Yep, definitely the girls you’ve been looking out for. You thought that you’d finally thrown them off, guess not. “This is fine. I’ll…deal with this tomorrow morning…” you muse aloud. You hand Jongdae his phone and his fingers brush against your own.

_“Maybe I just like you.”_

You snatch your hand away and grab onto your steering wheel trying to get rid of the memory of him teasing you from this morning. “Uhm, where do you want me to take you? Do you have a friend who you can stay with for the night?” you ask nervously, avoiding looking in his direction. He blows out a raspberry beside you as you pull out of the parking deck.

“No…I don’t wanna bother anyone. It’s too late at night. Maybe…I can just…stay at your place for the night?”

You nearly crash into the car in front of you.


	4. 4...

“No. That’s completely out of the question you can’t stay at my place.”

“But I can’t go home, and it’s not like anyone is even gonna-” the rest of his argument is slurred and quiet so you don’t manage to catch his reasoning. He groans and regathers his thoughts. “I won’t even bother you, you won’t know I’m here.”

You know this is an awful idea, but you also know that it would be an even worse idea to just ditch him somewhere in the middle of the night. You’ll let him stay at yours, and he can sleep on the couch. It's better than the alternatives even if the thought rubs you the wrong way. You’re going to blame the poor reasoning on your exhaustion.

“You’ll stay quiet?”

“As a mouse.”

“And you’ll leave before anyone knows that you were there?”

“Yes!”

A bad idea. You can feel this is a bad idea. It’s like your Spidey senses are tingling. You’ve got a talent for just _feeling_ terrible fucking ideas and this is definitely one.

Drunk Jongdae in your apartment. Why does it feel like you’re going to regret this?

* * *

“The shower is in the bedroom on the right. I’ll find you something that you can wear, and bring you some water so that you can sober up a little faster,” you ramble off as soon as you’re through the door. You can’t even look at him. It’s too embarrassing. You don’t invite people that you work with over very often, and even less often do you invite over male coworkers.

Being in such a male dominated work area, you’d had to be a bitch to gain the respect of your peers. And that respect came with a severe loss of anyone’s romantic interest in you. No one wants to go on a date with the woman who bosses around almost everyone in the company. Your only appeal is your uncanny ability to flip around and solve any issue. Any issue except for your own lack of apparent sexual appeal it seems.

Intimidating. Scary. Too independent.

Those are the words that you’d heard about yourself in the coffee rooms. Overheard in conversations. Whispered in hallways.

It made you feel shitty to be quite honest. Unwanted and unlovable. 

So to have Jongdae wandering around your apartment half-drunk staring at all your stuff in awe, is a bit out of your comfort zone, and you know that it shows. “Um, do you need me to show you to the room?” you ask quietly.

He looks up from a stack of papers that you’d left on your kitchen table to look at you innocently. “What?”

“The bathroom? Do you need to take a shower or something? You walked a while…and I uh…figured that you’d want to wash up or something,” you mumble.

The edges of his lips quirk up and you want to punch yourself in the face. Oh god here comes a joke. “Are you inviting me to get naked? I knew you were secretly in love with me-”

You couldn't help the “Go fuck yourself,” that slips from your lips if you tried.

“As long as I can think of you,” he beams back.

You smack a hand to your forehead and let out a loud sigh. “I’m too tired to even throw anything at you right now, so I’m going to order myself some food and drink a beer. You can either stay here quietly, or leave entirely.” You don’t miss the way that he’s still smiling to himself as you snatch a beer from your fridge and walk to your couch to turn on the TV.

“Can I have one?”

“A beer?”

“Yes.”

“No. You’re drunk.”

“I’m not _even_ drunk. I’m barely even tipsy at this point.”

“Doesn’t matter. You already drank tonight and I won’t encourage alcoholism.”

“A beer doesn’t _encourage_ alcoholism.”

“Sounds like something an alcoholic would say.”

Stumped, Jongdae crosses his arms and shuts up. You smile in victory at your television screen as you take a sip from your drink.

“You know…this is the first time I’ve ever seen you smile,” Jongdae observes. You snort.

“I’ve smiled before. Plenty of times.”

“Not in front of me. It’s like you hate me or something.”

He isn’t wrong. Not about you hating him, but rarely have you felt the desire to smile while around him. You don't tend to do much smiling at work in general, but that's not entirely his fault. 

But he doesn't need to know that. “That’s because every time I see you it’s because something dumb has happened that I've got to fix,” you reply honestly. You run your index finger along the lip of your bottle and stare at its wrapping absentmindedly. “And…it’s not like I hate you or anything…” you murmur softly enough that you _pray_ he doesn't actually hear it.

Unfortunately, things in your life don't tend to go over easily. Jongdae gets quiet. Too quiet, so now you know you've been heard. Jongdae rarely does quiet around you, so you look away from your half empty bottle to catch him looking at you. You can’t call it staring, nor would you say that he’s analyzing you, but he _is_ studying your face with an expression of his you think you’ve yet to decipher. The same look you only saw the tail end of when he left your office this very morning.

It makes you feel weird. Your heart feels like its pumping a little too hard. You skin feels like it’s just a little too hot. The fact that he isn’t look away this time is making your body jittery, and you kind of want to rip your stomach out of your body so that it’ll stop feeling the way that it is.

You aren’t used to being looked at this way. As if he’s trying to figure you out. As if he’s curious about the way you work, the things that make you tick, the things that make you smile.

For once, you feel vulnerable.

And you aren’t a fan of it.

You clear your throat and bring the bottle back to your lips for another sip. “Stop staring at me, it’s creepy.”

The couch shifts, Jongdae doesn’t say anything. It’s freaking you out. The two of you sit and watch the television shrouded in awkward silence. You can’t even focus on the plot; your mind is all over the place.

“I’m going to…take a shower,” you announce. You sit your now empty bottle on the table and stand. You jerk your thumb to your bedroom. “I’ll be in there. Don’t leave this room unless the house is on fire. There’s a blanket in the closet over there, you’re on the couch tonight. Goodnight.”

“What if I have to pee?!”

You ignore him and leave him on his own before you start to settle for the night and prepare for tomorrow. You eyeball your outfit for work and pull out pajamas so you can jump in the shower. Even though you didn’t get a chance to order food, you feel refreshed and cleansed of all today’s events.

It’s a bit cold in here tonight though. Is your heater working?

Maybe you should take Jongdae another blanket just to be-

No. He’ll be fine. You don’t have to bring him anything. You already told him where the blankets were.

But…he is your house guest.

And if he gets sick then you’ll have to deal with the repercussions.

Making up your mind, you walk back out of the room to check on Jongdae and make sure that he’s alive. That’s the least you can do right? You flick on one of your lamps. He’s lying on your couch, wrapped in the blankets like a thick burrito. You walk up to him and poke his cheek experimentally. “Jongdae?” you whisper.

“Mm?”

“Are you asleep?” he groans in response.

“Not anymore.” He sits up still wrapped in your patterned blankets and blinks at you sleepily in the dim room.

“Oh, sorry. I just wanted to…uh check up on you I guess. Are you warm enough? I think my heater is messed up.”

He closes his eyes and nods, still sitting up.

“Okay…sorry for waking you up,” you tell him sheepishly. God, what is wrong with you? You sound so _stupid_. What happened to being the boss lady? Where’s the personality that demands respect? _Fuck_. “I’ll just…go to bed now,” you mumble nervously. His hand reaches out of the blankets to grab your arm. Heat rushes up your neck at the contact.

He yawns loudly. “I meant what I said earlier,” he says. You blink dumbly as you wait for him to elaborate. He said a lot of things today. You feel nervousness bubbling in your stomach as you wait for him to address what you _know_ he is going to address. “I just wanted to let you know that I wasn’t kidding. This morning. I do like you. I just…thought you should know.” His voice is surprisingly even, and his eyes are serious locked on your own. Your brain is short circuiting. You felt this coming but it feels no less shocking.

“Oh,” you whisper.

“Yeah,” he responds just as quietly. His hand slides down your wrist into your own and you can feel your pulse beating against his. You stand there at a loss for what to do next. You know that he actually likes you. Your heart is pounding and you…kind of don’t want him to let go of you. If he does then you’ll have to go back to your room, go back to work, and make yourself forget that this happened. It’s easy to push away his confession if you pretend that it’s still just a joke. As long as all you have is words, you can make up any truth in your mind.

“I want to kiss you…is- is that okay?” Actions. Actions are a different story entirely. Your breath catches in your throat at the question, and despite everything, you nod anyway.

A kiss isn’t as easy to play off as a joke. Not when he’s asking so lowly, holding your hand so warmly, looking at you so kindly, leaning in so nervously.

Not when his lips are pressed against yours so softly.


	5. 5...

You don’t see Jongdae for four days after the whole incident at your apartment. You’ve been avoiding him on purpose, but he hasn’t made a much of an effort to come to you either. Of course there were at least two matters of his that you had to handle during your time avoiding him, but you made sure to deal with them without actually calling him up to your office.

You can’t look at him.

Can’t talk to him.

You really just want to forget the whole damn thing happened, but it’s hard to pretend when every moment you have left alone with nothing but your thoughts, you’re plagued with the memory of that night.

You don’t understand why this is happening. You don’t understand why it’s happening so suddenly at least. You won’t lie to yourself. It’s not like you don’t find Jongdae attractive…or funny…or entertaining to be around…or extremely charming. Maybe you liked arguing with him and having someone who would challenge you in the workplace. And it’s not like you don’t think that the way that he laughs isn’t absolutely contagious, nor is it cute how his eyes crinkle up and his mouth-

_Fuck._

No. You physically shake your head to clear away the thoughts that the stupid fucking kiss brought on. The stupid fucking kiss that _you_ shouldn’t have let happen. He’s a client. You aren’t allowed to be “involved” with your clients. Especially not one of the ones from one of the company’s most lucrative groups. You can’t believe that you’re starting to realize your own feelings for him after such a small intimate moment together. How sexually repressed are you?

Tapping your nails against the top of your stapler you glance at the time on your desktop.

The small numbers shine at you, taunting you. 15 minutes until you can go home. 15 minutes until you have to leave and stare at a couch that you’re _really_ considering burning at this point just so that you can go back to using it for fuck's sake.

Your phone buzzes on the desk and you answer it without even checking the caller. “Hello?…mhm…no it’s fine for them to go…yeah it’s just Paris Fashion Week and we can garner a bit of publicity with Sehun there…no I’m not telling you to _make_ him go, if he wants to he can…Junmyeon too?…Yep, it’s fine with me…alright, make sure they stay safe and they have guards just in case anything crazy happens. Oh! And tell Sehun to stop with the fucking peace signs. I’m seeing the pictures online and he knows how to pose without it. Tell him to relax.” You disconnect the call and drop your head in your hands.

A few more minutes and then you can go home for the weekend and recharge before next week. Maybe you’ll go watch a movie or treat yourself to a new outfit at one of your favorite stores. Anything so that you won’t be left at home alone for too long with that _fucking_ couch.

“Ma’am?” you raise your head to find Nari standing in your door.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you so close to your clock out time, but uh…Jongdae is here to see you.” Your eyes widen almost unconsciously at the name. “I can tell him to leave if you’d rather he waits until Monday-”

“No,” you interrupt briskly. “Let him in. You can go ahead and leave for the day if you’d like. Thank you for all your hard work this week.”

She blushes and bows quickly at your words. “Th-Thank you! I will see you Monday!” with a bright smile she exits the room. You can hear the muffled voices outside of your door, one of which you assume is Jongdae as she lets him know that he can come in.

You mentally brace yourself for his entrance. It’s weird that you’re nervous, but you can’t figure out what is about to happen. Usually you’re a good guesser, but for some reason this week your brain has just…not been on your side. If you don’t get your shit together soon then you _know_ your job is going to suffer.

“Hey…” lost in your thoughts you hadn’t even heard him walk in the room. He sits in the chair in front of you and looks around your office as if it’s his first time there.

“Oh…uh hey,” you reply. You clear your throat and sit up in your seat putting on your big girl voice. “What have you done now?”

“I…have a problem, and I’ve been trying to figure it out before coming to you about it.”

“What is it? I’m sure I can help you figure out a solution.”

“As you might know, I…sort of like someone in the company" he starts. You bite the inside of your cheek as he continues, "and I _think_ that she might like me as well, but I don’t know for sure. She’s usually really mean to me, and never smiles around me, but I still feel like she _likes_ arguing with me.” It doesn’t take a genius to know what he’s talking about, but you decide to play along and nod along thoughtfully to his story. The nervous bubbling in your stomach returns full-force as if to actively reject the act that you're putting on. “I’ve…actually liked her for a few months now, but didn’t want to tell her and look like a loser if she shut me down. And after I did something dumb on Monday I tried to give her some space, but- I don’t know, it’s stupid, but I miss talking to her? Even though she’s almost always just yelling at me.”

“What do I have to do with this? Sounds like a you problem.”

“Well, I wanted…to ask her out on a date,” he looks down at his interlocked fingers and fidgets with his thumbs. You see the slight red spreading up his neck as he goes on. “What do you think about that?”

A date? He…Jongdae wants to ask you out on a date? You swallow _hard_ at the proposition. 

“Uh… well it’s against company policy for employees to date, so I would have to advise against it unless she happens to be in one of the company’s idol groups, then it might be able to be arranged. That’s what the company would advise," you attempt to sound professional, but the shakiness in your voice is audible to even your ears.

“What would _you_ advise?” He sounds...hopeful.

“I would advise…rather I would _say_ , that you’re dumb for liking her and she should probably kick your ass for the amount of trouble you could be getting the both of you in.” He laughs and you feel the bubbling in your stomach intensify. You hold back your smile and give him as serious a look as you can muster. “But…I think that…she doesn’t think that what you did was _entirely_ dumb and as long as you’re both careful…you should ask her on that date.”

He leans forward in his seat, and that smile that is brighter than the sun itself shows up on his face. “Really?!”

You breathe out a laugh and nod. There are at least 20 rules that this is breaking, but you want to give this a try. He likes you. You like him. You hate to admit it, but you do. It only took four days of deep self-reflection after he stayed at your apartment. You like to think that you’re rational and you’re usually doing what’s best for everyone else, so you deserve this one moment for yourself. Just this once.

If it doesn’t work out, then too bad. You both go back to arguing and pretend nothing happened in the first place. If it does well then…you’ll figure it out from there. There no way this will last longer than a month - at most. He’s just curious, and so are you. It won’t be anything serious.

You shush Jongdae and his happy laughter. “Look, this is still against the rules, and I could lose my job just like you might lose fans if this gets out. This…has to stay quiet okay?”

“I know! Okay! Alright! Wow, I can’t believe you actually said yes. You _likeeeee_ -“

“Jongdae!” you scold him.

“Exactly,” he says smugly. _'You like me'_ , his attitude suddenly says. He stands up from his seat with too much pep in his step. “I’ll call you tonight then.”

“I guess I’ll unblock your number…”

“You blocked my number?”

“You use to call just to fucking annoy me of course I did!”

“I knew it was weird that none of my calls would ever go through. I ACTUALLY NEEDED YOUR HELP SOME OF THOSE TIMES!!”

“YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THAT BEFOREHAND!” you yell back, standing and bracing your hands against your desk. He walks up and puts his hands right in front of yours, and leans against your desk as well.

“I’ll call you tonight,” he says softly. The movement is quick when his lips peck your cheek, and then he’s walking out of the room backwards; self-satisfied and smiling. “Unblock me!” he calls out before leaving entirely. You make quick work of unlocking your phone and adding Jongdae back into your regular contacts.

Not even an hour later you get a text from him.

**From: Jongdae**

_I’ll be over tomorrow morning:3_ (Read 10:48pm)


	6. 6...

At 8:47 in the morning you woke up. You sat up in bed feeling like a kid who’d woken up on Christmas morning. You could say, without a doubt, you hadn't felt this much pure happiness in _years_. The sun was shining; the birds were chirping. For once you were excited to take on the day.

Because you were going to see Jongdae today. You’re going to see him, and you’re actually going to have fun with him. You won’t have to worry about scolding him. Won't have to worry about fixing some bullshit that he’s managed to get in to. You won’t have to worry about being professional. 

Today you get to have fun, with someone who likes you and someone who you _actually might kind of_ like back. 

At 9 in the morning you were done checking your phone for emails and messages and returning the 2 calls that you missed late last night. You were a bit sad not to see anything new from Jongdae, but you got out of bed anyway and got ready for your day. You’d just message him yourself after you washed up.

At 9:25 you sent a message to him asking what time he planned on coming over. You didn’t get a response right away so you went ahead and got dressed anyway. If he just happened to show up out of nowhere you’d rather be dressed and waiting than rushing to get dressed with him at the door.

At 11:13 you sent him another message asking if he was alive. You didn’t tell him that you were beginning to get worried. Is his phone dead? Did he forget? Feeling a little put off at his lack of response you locked your phone and decided to watch a movie on Netflix. 

You felt ignored. Neglected even. A bit angry, but you weren’t going to let it ruin your day. He probably has his reason for being late, and when he gets here you’ll just make sure to tell him off. Maybe you’ll ignore him and jokingly tell him to go home because your time is money, and he blew his chance. He’d probably whine, you’d get a laugh out of it and you’d both move on. 

At 5 in the evening you were _pissed_. He’d stood you up. You weren’t going to cry. You weren’t going to spam his phone with messages. You’re a grown ass woman and one guy standing you up isn’t going to make you resort to acting desperate and losing your dignity. Especially no one like Jongdae.

At 9:48 you took off all your makeup, put your pajamas back on, and fixed yourself something for dinner. You don’t know why you decided that _waiting_ to eat was a good idea. You assumed you’d get food on your date, but since it was _obviously_ no longer happening you realized how dumb your reasoning sounded. You wait to eat for _no_ man. _Especially no one like Jongdae_.

You stabbed at your plate while watching a rerun of The Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, angrier at yourself than at Jongdae at this point. You let yourself get played. You played right in to the game, and you embarrassed yourself. You told him you liked him, god you actually admitted it and now he knows and will probably make fun of you about it for the rest of your careers. You got stood up _and_ it’s only because you said yes to the first mention of a date after like 6 years of _nothing_. Well…you’d had a couple of one night stands in the last few years, but they were just that. Ways to release some tension with total strangers who didn’t know anything about you or what you do. 

“Ugh!” you let your plate land on your table with a clang and cross your arms over your chest. How could you be this dumb? _Actually agreeing to date him_? What the fuck! You aren’t in college anymore. How’d you do something so thoughtless after getting (what you thought was serious) attention _one time_ after moving to Seoul and taking the job at SM? 

At 12am, you were still up and nursing a bowl of popcorn and a small tub of ice cream binge watching scary movies. You watch some blonde girl get decapitated by a monster when you hear your doorbell buzzing. “Coming!” you yell around a mouth full of popcorn. Wiping your buttery fingers on the grey material of your shirt, you make your way to the door and try to force down the absurd amount of popcorn you shoved in your mouth before the door buzzed. Why’d you try to eat so much? “Who is it?” comes your muffled question. For so late in the evening there's not many people who would come knocking on your door. You have an itching feeling you know who it is.

“It’s me,” the person says. Your hand stalls on the doorknob. You look out of the peephole to confirm your suspicions, and quickly put on the chain lock before opening your door just a sliver of the way.

“What are you doing here Jongdae?” seeing him makes the anger that you felt before flare once more, and it doesn’t even matter that he looks _amazing_ in his stupid jeans and black hoodie and his stupid hair is all over his head or that he just looks _soft_ and _cuddly_. 

He smiles apologetically at your frowning face. He knows that you’re mad at him, its apparent in his expression. He only ever looks like this when he’s really done something wrong and he knows you’re going to either curse him out or throw shit at him in your office. That being said, you’re very familiar with this expression of his. “I know you’re beyond pissed but-”

“No it’s fine,” you say bluntly. He closes his mouth with a clack and looks at you in confusion. “I knew you were joking about…all of this. I get it, you got me. I’ll admit it. I believed you for a while there. Don’t even worry about it. We can forget this whole happened and go back to shouting at one another next week like we did before. See you at work on Monday Jongdae.” You give him a weak half smile that, surprisingly, hurts to fake and go to push your door closed when his hand flies through the space between the door and wall. 

As tempted as you are to actually just fucking _slam_ it on his arm, you decide against it and open your door back up. You aren’t a child, and there’s no reason the physically hurt him for this. Violence is never the answer, and you would never resort to that…although you won’t deny the thought crossed your mind. You don't want to explain on Monday why the EXO member suddenly has a broken bone. You sigh, he laughs nervously. “I have wine as an apology?”

“Was that a question or a statement?”

“Both? Whichever makes you less angry at me I guess.” You scowl to yourself and curse your apparent weak will. He removes his hand, you close your door so that you undo the lock and open it fully. 

Jongdae lets out a sigh of relief when the door opens; he takes a step towards you only to falter when you don’t move to let him in. You see the bottle of red wine in his hand that you know is expensive and _really_ _good_ because you’ve had it twice at SM staff parties.

“You look cute,” he says smiling shyly while giving you a once over.

“I look like shit,” you deadpan, moving out of the way so that he can finally come in. He juts out his bottom lip while he takes off his shoes.

“You still look cute. I’ve never even see you in casual clothes,” you hear him mumble with that slight whine that he likes to tack onto the ends of his words. It’s like a verbal pout really. Turning your back on him to take out 2 wine glasses and your trusty wine opener you stick your tongue out and mock his words quietly. 

“You still look cute blah blah blah,” you grab the glasses, set them down, and turn back to see him walking closer to you and setting the wine on the counter next to your sink. He takes slow steps towards you and eyes your crossed arms, or maybe he’s looking at your tits. You don’t know for sure, but you do remember that you aren’t wearing a bra. The idea of properly covering your chest passes through your mind, but he’s already seen them now, so there’s really no point. 

“I’m really sorry for being so late-”

You scoff, “So late…”

“Okay, for not showing up at all. I’m sorry. We had an emergency schedule and it ran way too long, and I meant to tell you but my phone died early this morning. I completely forgot to charge it last night. I’m an idiot…”

He pauses and looks at you as if waiting for you to forgive him or tell him that he’s wrong. You point to yourself and scoff again. “Are you waiting for me to tell you that you aren’t an idiot? Cause if you are it’s going to be a long night.”

“Do you forgive me at least? I _am_ really sorry.” You give him a neutral look before opening the wine and pouring some in both glasses (making sure there is a _generous_ amount in your own). You grab your glass and trot over to the TV. Jongdae follows and sits beside you with a hard pout on his face while he nurses his own glass. “Are you ignoring me now? I said I was sorry! Why are you doing this? You know I hate being ignored, I-”

You down the entire glass of wine right before standing up and jerking your head to the kitchen again. “Are you hungry? I can order something or we could eat some ramen-” you let the suggestion die on your tongue, and hope he doesn’t read too far into your latter suggestion. Eat ramen? Why would you ask that when you’re both alone in your apartment? Now, he’s going to think you want to fuck him. Well…it’s not like you _don’t_ want to, but...maybe you can play it off as a phrase you don't know, you weren't raised in South Korea, he wouldn't know if you didn't know the connotations of it.

You glance at him to catch him blinking dumbly at you and you immediately know that he knows the implication and now you _really_ want to slam your head in the microwave and push fucking start so that you can just die rather than have to stand here in this growing awkwardness. 

“I uh-" You stutter around your words trying to get _something_ coherant out, and each syllable that escapes from your mouth makes you feel like you’re slipping even farther in a hole. You are supposed to be a master of words. A verbal magician. Where are all those years of training?

He stands up and you can see the mischief dancing in his eyes even though his face is mostly blank. The corners of his mouth are lifted just slightly more than usual and the air around him is _screaming with confidence_. Trapped. He knows.

Your pulse speeds up; the air around you feels heavier. 

“I didn’t mean to mess up our first date,” he says. Is it just you or is his voice lower than usual? “But, I know how to make it up to you.” His hands find their way to your hips, and you can feel the warmth of his skin through your _stupid_ greasy butter-stained cotton shirt. Your skin prickles, and you glance at his lips momentarily before finding his eyes again. 

God you want him to kiss you again. 

“It doesn’t…have anything to do with eating ramen…does it?”

His eyebrow twitches up just a little bit the way that it sometimes does when he’s either happy or confused. “Do you…want it to?” he asks. His fingers press a bit harder against your skin. You feel like a moth to flame, your heart beating loudly in your ears and dragging you closer to his warm. His eyes are looking at you too closely, his breath brushes against your face too warmly. Finding your voice comes a little too difficult, but after swallowing the lump that’s formed in the middle of your throat you’re able to respond.

“I mean I’m not _opposed_ to it-” he cuts off the rest your whispered confession as his mouth presses in on your own. All of your remaining reluctance vanishes along with your ability to think. All you want to do now, is _act_. 

All you can focus on is how nice it feel when his lips are against your own and the taste of red wine on both of your tongues. Your hands reach up to splay across his cheeks, to brush through his hair, to lock themselves behind his neck in a place where you can easily deepen the kiss. Your stomach drops when he pulls you closer, chests colliding softly, and you gasp into his mouth. Surpirsed, and definitely wanting _more._

Your calf hits the front of your sofa, and the two of you nearly topple over entirely. You barely stop the fall by reaching out and bracing yourself against the top of it with your arm. Chest heaving and in an awkward position, you take in the equally disheveled mess you’ve made of Jongdae. 

He’s leaning over you with his own arm keeping him up, the other still securely holding you around the waist. His lips reddening and shining (because of you, you note proudly). There's a pause of nothing but labored breathing as the two of you just _stare_ and try to figure out where to go from here.

He groans in the back of his throat and before you can tell him to 'wait', he leans back down and throws you both off your balance. His added weight forces you down, and he lands sprawled out on top of you. You sink into the couch with a grunt. His lips find their way to your neck, and your breath once again does _not_ find itself filling your lungs.

Unbothered, it seems, his body continues to blanket you. His words puff out against your neck, “What are you doing to me?”

You laugh and close your eyes to try and regather your wits and ability to breathe. “I don’t know. I ask the same to myself about you,” you admit. 

He pulls back and looks down at you with his bottom lip tucked under his teeth. “You’re so beautiful,” he finally says. 

“You’ve got a raging boner; you’d say anything to get in my pants right now.”

“You’re right,” he says with that smile that’s starting to make your stomach do flips. “But, you’re still beautiful.”

“Shut up and let’s go back to my room, I don’t want to get laid on this couch. I already can’t sit here without thinking about you kissing- I mean let’s go.” Your cheeks flame and you try to escape from his growing laughter at your accidental admission. 

“You’re so bad at pretending you don’t like me,” you shove your face against his collar and groan loudly. You’re still horny and all this waiting around is about to drive you mad. You might _just_ be fine with him fucking you on this small ass couch if this teasing is prolonged any longer. 

“Can we just…go to my room? _Please_.”

“Ooh begging. Never thought I’d hear it from you, I’m all for this- _wait_ wait!” his laughter stops you midway through sliding off the couch to escape. “C’mon, stop running away. I’ve got you.” He hooks his arm under your legs and hoists you up bridal style. You had no idea he was actually strong enough to pick you up. “Let’s go. I’m not going to lie, I am _extremely_ turned on right now and the fact that you're still in your clothes is making me more annoyed by the second.” 


	7. 7...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some smut, I'm shit at smut. It's not graphic though.

You can’t wrap your head around the way the night is turning out. An hour ago you were fully prepared to fall asleep on your couch covered in fake butter and ice cream. But here you are now, mostly naked on your bed (still slighty covered in fake butter) with Jongdae kissing up and down your neck in places that make the rest of your body ache for attention.

You grip at the material of his hoodie with a desperation you would never show if you were truly in your right mind. Fortunately, you aren’t in your right mind, and haven't been for almost a week now, because you would have stopped this _long_ ago if you were.

Somehow understanding your pawing at the material, Jongdae pulls back and strips himself of the black hoodie. The white t-shirt beneath rises as he yanks it over his head, giving you a glimpse at a sliver of skin on his stomach. 

God, he looks good in that white shirt. He would look even better with it _off_ , and on the floor with your shirt keeping it company.

No one should look this fucking attractive in a plain white shirt. 

He looks down at you beneath him and just…looks at you. You aren’t sure what he’s thinking, but he’s doing that thing again where it’s like he’s looking beyond your walls and pulling out the very things about yourself that you don’t like to show. The thing where you feel exposed because he looks so serious but simultaneously unjudging. Like he's praising your physical body alongside decoding your secrets and is _now_ the time for him to be doing this?

“Jongdae…” you squeak out. The sound of your voice in your own ears is pathetic. You try not to shrivel in on yourself. He blinks twice in quick succession before his eyes stop roaming and fall on your face once again. 

He smiles shyly and your stupid stomach does a backflip at it. “Sorry,” he murmurs, diving down to peck your lips. His full kitten-like smile makes its reappearance and his eyes crinkle and god _dammit_ why is he acting sweet when you were both dead set on just having rough sex like 5 minutes ago? “I got distracted by how breathtaking you look.”

You groan in embarrassment and he giggles outright. Wiggling from under him you reposition yourself and rid your body of the last of your clothing. He’s taking way too long to undress, and you hate the feeling of being naked alone, so you decide to take matters into your own hands.

You realize quickly that he’s quite receptive to you taking control and undressing him yourself. You make a mental note of the observation. He goes nearly dead silent as you make quick work of is shirt (finally, fuck that white t-shirt), his jeans, and then finally his briefs.

A whine crawls its way out of your throat at the sight of him before you like this. Patient, waiting, _willing_. He looks so _good_ and _fuck_ you want him so bad. This time it’s your turn to stare. At the muscles in his arms. The patch of hair on his happy trail. The little moles that dot his skin. “You’re staring,” he sing-songs. 

You snort and avert your eyes to his smug face. “As _if_ you weren’t doing the same-” lips find yours once again and you forget what you were going to say. Focused now on how good his lips feel and how his tongue tastes and how much you’re aching for him to finally quench this agonizing thirst that he’s somehow brought upon you. His hands roam across your skin and leave behind touches that burn themselves into your memory. You can feel every little touch of his skin against yours. 

He makes quick work of the condom that you remembered to snatch from a drawer at your bedside. He pushes into you so slowly that you would have hit him had you not been made breathless by the look on his face. The exctasy in his expression as he savors the feeling of burying himself inside of you. So you'll give him a pass this time.

Uncoordinated kisses and touches are shared as you try to find the rhythm that works best for the both of you. The rhythm that will set the pace for the rest of the night. It's always clumsy the first time. Made more so by the sheer desperation you both seem to be barely containing. You find your sync and things move frantically, desperately, eagerly, after. You both kiss deeper, move with more confidence, more force, more _purpose._

You can feel your own end rushing upon you. You grip tighter, breathe harder, your sounds get louder. A touch in the right place and a breathy whisper of your own name in your ear is all it takes to send you over the edge. Toes curling, mouth choking on a moan halfway through the sound as you focus on _feeling_ and experiencing every moment of your orgasm. You don't see it, eyes screwed shut as you slowly come down from a high you havent felt in _who knows_ how long, but you can feel Jongdae's pace picking up, and only vaguely do you feel him stiffen, twitch, still, while inside of you.

When you open your eyes, you find him staring at the space where your bodies are connected. You reach out and touch his cheek, lazily guiding his lips back to your own. You can feel the sudden emptiness, but the rest of your body feels so _full_.

Out of breath and spent, you sink into your sheets. Jongdae rolls off you and exhales loudly beside you. A beat of silence. “I’m gross now,” you complain in the aftermath at the cooling between your thighs. 

“You’re still cute though,” he chimes in with a kiss to your cheek. You shove his face away playfully and slide out of bed to escape to your shower. Quickly cleaning yourself up and tossing on another large shirt you leave the bathroom to catch Jongdae sprawled across your bed. Ass on full display. Perky. You won't smack it. Not _yet_.

“Hey,” you call out. “Yo! Get up and go shower.”

“No, too tired.”

“Jongdae, you can’t be _that_ tired.”

“Surprise. I am.” You roll your eyes and sit beside his naked form on your bed. His face is buried in the pillow that you usually sleep in and his eyes are closed. You’re tempted to touch the fringe of hair on his forehead, but you scold yourself in your mind and keep your hands to yourself. You aren’t going to do it no matter how stupid cute he looks. 

Sighing aloud, you crawl under your sheets and yank them hard enough to give you more covers to work with since he’s lying on god-damn-top of them all. He groans aloud and rolls off the bed entirely. Although he said he wouldn’t, he slides into your bathroom to take a shower anyway. 

You’re going to have to wash your sheets in the morning. You would groan in frustration, but for some reason you aren't as bothered by it as you normally would be.

The sounds of the shower running and the occasion thump from him dropping your stuff in the bathroom fills the space of your room, and you can’t believe that you like it. You pride yourself on your ability to enjoy your time by yourself, and honestly, you prefer not being around other people when you want to relax. It’s unsettling how easily you can see Jongdae just barging in and fucking up the little routine life you’d been living up until now.

The bathroom door opens. “I’m excited, my hair is going to smell like peppermint,” Jongdae says wrapped in the towel you used to dry off earlier. 

“Did you use my fucking shampoo?”

“It was sitting there begging to be used. Besides, your hair doesn’t even _smell_ like peppermint so you haven’t been using it.” 

“It’s my special shampoo! I only use it on special occasions.” 

“Whoops,” he says with a smile. You toss your covers off your body and trudge over to your closet for something for him to sleep in. You have a couple of shirts far too big for you that you bought because you like feeling smaller in them, and you happen to have a pair of briefs that you bought at the store because they had mermaids and sailors on them and you couldn’t resist the temptation.

Jongdae lucked out. 

“Here,” you hold out the clothes.

“Why do you have briefs?”

“Because I bought them?”

“But why?”

“Look, either take the clothes, or sleep naked. I don’t care.” He takes the shirt and leaves the underwear in your hands. You give him a look.

“They’re too big for me. I don’t wear that size,” he explains. You shake your head in disbelief and toss the underwear across the room before crawling back under your covers. 

You flick off your beside lamp and the room falls into complete darkness. You listen in satisfaction as he stumbles around trying to find his way back to the bed in the dark. When he does, he mumbles petulantly under his breath. 

Score one for you. 

Jongdae curls up to your side and you feel a distinct lack of clothing. “Jongdae!”

“I didn’t like the shirt. Shush. Go to sleep. I’m tired.” He slings an arm over your body and holds you close. You don’t pull away, not this time, instead you let yourself fall asleep surrounded by warmth. 

You're _fucked_.


	8. 8...

As it turns out, Jongdae’s _real_ idea of making it up to you involves taking you to a movie, not having sex and then almost immediately falling asleep together. 

Although that part was pretty great. You think that you both can agree on that one.

You had fun last night, sure, but you aren’t completely sold on his apology. Not yet. So, you’re eagerly awaiting this movie date, mainly to see what else he considers part of his last minute plan to make it up to you. It’s been a while since you've gone to the movies with someone else. You tend to go alone when you have the urge to visit the theater. The last person you went with was your cousin, and that’s just because they were in Seoul for the week and wanted to hang out.

After lending him a toothbrush and showing him how to work your washer and dryer (he offered to wash your sheets for you; you didn't fight him for the task), you go to work cleaning your room and finding something to wear. You end up in a simple pair of jeans, a thermal shirt, and a grey sweatshirt from the back of your closet once you've gone through a round of mental gymnastics over what to wear. Should you dress up? Should you dress down? Would it look like you're trying to hard? Would it look like you aren't trying _enough_?

You and Jongdae are almost matching when he pulls his clothes from last night back on.

Couple’s outfits.

Gross.

You pull a hat on top of your head and Jongdae puts on his face mask before the two of you leave your place. 

“Taking your car is probably a bad idea, right?”

“Yeah, if anyone recognizes you and then gets a hold of my license plate then…we could have some issues- correction _I_ will have some issues to deal with, and I’d like to not make work for future me to deal with.”

“Walking it is then…”

The theater isn’t far from your apartment, so you don’t have to worry about dying of exhaustion on the walk. You kind of wish that you’d gone on this movie date thing during the week so that you wouldn’t have to be so careful to avoid being caught together.

You both settle on watching some comedy with good reviews online. Jongdae buys popcorn, drinks, and even candy (you knew at that moment that he was trying to go all out for the impromptu date) for the two of you to snack on.

You’ll admit it, the movie kind of sucked. You weren’t all that pulled in by the plot, and you were pretty sure that you would rather be asleep than sitting here, but you didn’t want to ruin the morning.

So, you decide to try and have some fun with what’s around you.

And that happens to be Jongdae.

It’s subtle at first. Your hand creeping across the arm rest and then drumming against it. Then it sliding on top of his leg. If he notices your hand lightly resting on his thigh, he doesn’t show it. You think that you feel his thigh tense under your palm, but you could have been making that up. You keep your head facing the screen and glance at him from your periphery.

When your fingers ghost over his crotch, you finally get a reaction that you’re looking for. He turns his head in your direction and when you pretend to be ignorant of his look, he turns back to the screen in confusion. He looks down at your hand on his leg and then shifts in the seat uncomfortably.

Oh yes. This is what you wanted.

There are three people, tops, in the theater along with you and Jongdae, and they laugh at a scene on the screen. You laugh along even though you weren’t even paying attention to the movie in the first place. You brush your fingers over Jongdae’s crotch once again while you’re mid laugh and he’s in the middle of drinking his drink.

He nearly chokes. 

He recovers after a bit of stifled coughing. “What are you _doing_?” he whispers.

You turn from the screen and blink innocently. “I’m not doing anything. I’m watching the movie. What’s wrong?” Thank God your lying comes as second nature. You know that you sound convincing, and if the pout/frown that he’s sporting is any indication, then you know that you’ve tricked him into believing you. Too easy.

When the two of you turn away, you try your hardest not to break out in a smile. It’s just too easy. Jongdae is so easy to tease even though he lives his entire life doing exactly that.

It’s the third brush of your hand that forces him to act. He grabs your wrist in the middle of your action and you startle at his quick reaction. You look down at your wrist locked in his grip and give him the most convincing confused head tilt that you can manage.

“Now I _know_ that you’re doing this on purpose,” he says quietly. His eyes are more serious than you thought they would be, but you decide to just assume that it’s because your plan is working.

You tug away from him and he lets go without resistance. “Jongdae, you’re being weird. I literally have no clue what you’re talking about.” His glare is the only thing close to a response that you get. You both go back to facing the screen. You wait a solid 5 minutes and 4 bad jokes before continuing fucking with the man beside you.

From the corner of your eye you watch him laugh at the movie. You wonder if enough time has passed for him to temporarily have forgotten about your touches.

That won’t do. How can you sneak your hand over…while still being obvious enough to get his attention?

The popcorn.

You’ll just…accidentally drop some popcorn near his dick and then you’ll blindly try to pick it up. If you happen to, you don’t know, palm him through his pants then it’ll just be because you were trying to find the popcorn.

It’s stupid enough to work. It’s not like you’d eat the popcorn that’s touched the seat, but you can convince him that you were trying to find them and clean them away if you try hard enough.

When you put the plan in to action, the first part flows perfectly. The popcorn falls, you curse softly and then search for it while keeping your eyes glued to the screen. Jongdae spreads his legs and looks down for the dropped pieces himself.

Jackpot.

Your hand cups over his crotch through his pants, and his intake of air is almost inaudible over the movie. The smirk on your face isn’t well hidden. He’s looking at you dead on now. As if he’s in complete disbelief. Good. You wanted shock.

You add more pressure and he sits back in his seat, glancing around the theater nervously. You don’t know why. You’re behind everyone, and there's only three other people in the room so it’s not like someone is going to catch you both over your shoulders.

He doesn’t try to stop you this time, and while you know he’s fighting inside of himself at the acceptableness of doing this in public, you also know that he’s enjoying the riskiness of it. It's juvenile, stupid, and just a bit wild.

Although…it’s not nearly as wild as it could be. It’s not like you’re going to pull his dick out in the middle of the movie. You're not a 16-year-old about to give her first boyfriend a butter-slicked hand job in the back of the theater.

Just…touching it is all. 

The effects of your slow palming become apparent as you start to notice a difference beneath your hand. A certain...growth.

“Can we leave? I can’t- can’t focus,” he mumbles. You elect to ignore him and push against him a bit harder. He groans softly when he instinctively pushes back. You hear the inhale of breath before his hand grabs your wrist again. You pull your gaze from the screen. “If you’re going to do this then we have to leave.”

“But I’m watching the movie?”

“Was that a question or a statement?”

“Both? Whichever annoys you more,” you say lightly. You flash a grin and blink purposefully. Watching his composure crumble in public is _so satisfying_ and wow you can’t believe that you’re getting off on his suffering right now. He frowns at you, his jaw clenches in frustration, and _god_ you’d rather be doing so many _other things_ than sitting here bored out of your mind.

“Nope, you aren’t doing this,” he says with finality. You want to laugh at how easily you were able to manipulate the situation. Goodbye theater.

Jongdae stands up, adjust himself, and pulls you away from your seats towards the exit. You look over your shoulder at the food and drinks that you left behind. You kind of feel bad for the mess. Then again, knowing that you’re about to have frustrated sex (mainly on his part) instead of watching that dreadful movie is enough to combat any guilt you may feel for wasting the time and money on this date.

When the two of you get back through your front door, your back is pressed up against the wall, and clothes are coming off between touches, you know that all of it was totally worth it. You might kin of miss him when he goes off on tour next week and you have to go to work not seeing him nearly every day. This is a weird feeling. You aren’t sure that you like it.

For now you'll enjoy having him here. You'll enjoy just being with him.


	9. 9...

Three weeks.

Jongdae has been gone for a solid three weeks, and, shockingly enough, you haven’t heard any news from him. None bad at least. Which takes you a bit off guard.

And it makes you wonder if he’s been getting in trouble on purpose.

You wouldn’t put it passed him. Especially if he’s just been using it as a reason to come up to your office.

But even without the bad news, you haven’t really heard from him at all. Apart from the occasional text every few days letting you know that he’s alive, it’s been nothing but silence. You aren’t worried, and you understand that he’s busy since they’ve started another leg of their tour out of the country. You just…kind of miss him.

Work continues on as usual. Reports from groups on hiatus. Statuses on tours going on outside of the country. Word of things you have to be on the lookout for when certain groups in the company make their comebacks.

It’s all boring.

Show up to work, check your emails, read over some releases, go to lunch. Work more and then leave for the day. It’s at the end of week three that you break. There’s still maybe a week and a half until EXO’s next break, and you aren’t sure you can go that much longer without hearing his voice.

You sit on your bed and tap on the screen of your phone anxiously. Should you message him? What time is it where he his? Would he be in the middle of a concert? Is he asleep? When did you become so fucking _needy_?

“God damn it,” you mutter to yourself before tossing you phone to the side of your bed and resting your head in your hands.

Maybe you should just call it a day. You aren’t particularly tired, but if you stay up too much longer staring at your phone you might go insane. You aren’t 19 anymore. You’re an adult. An adult with responsibilities, and having an internal breakdown over a guy isn’t what you do. It’s just _Jongdae_. The same Jongdae who you wanted to strangle like a month ago. The same Jongdae you argued with practically every day at work.

The same Jongdae you’ve been able to joke around with. The same Jongdae who sometimes looks at you in that way that's too intense, and you’ve never done anything to deserve a look full of so much adoration and-

Yeah, you’re going to bed. You don’t like where your thoughts are headed.

Grabbing your phone and plugging it in to your charger, you set it on your bedside table.

And then just…stare at it.

You shove your face into your pillow and groan as loud as you can without waking up any of your neighbors so late at night. You aren’t going to call him. You _aren’t_ going to call him. You’d rather shave your head than admit to him that you _actually_ miss talking to him.

Your phone starts to vibrate on your tabletop and you sigh before blindly reaching for it and putting it to your ear.

“Hello?” you mumble against your pillow. “Hello?!” You try again after the person doesn’t respond.

A sigh from the other side of the line. “Were you asleep?”

You perk up. “Jongdae?”

“Mm. I’m sorry I’ll call you in a few hours I didn’t mean to wake you up. Goodnig-”

“Wait!” you sit up in your bed and pull the phone away from your face to check and see that it’s actually him. It is, and suddenly you feel extremely fucking nervous. Oh my god why did you just shout at him to wait?! You’re blowing this. Oh shit he’s still on the phone waiting for you to say something. You press the phone to your ear and exhale. “Hey,” comes your breathy response. All that thinking legitimately made you lose your breath. You're a mess.

“Hey.” And fucking Christ you can _hear_ the little smirk on his face.

“Why’d you call? Aren’t you busy?”

“No, we just finished the show.”

“Are you at your hotel now?”

“Mm.”

“Why aren’t you out exploring? Don’t you all usually like doing that while you’re overseas?” you ask teasingly. Their little bouts of exploring are usually the reason you walk in to work with a shit ton of calls to make. Apologies. Confirmations. The occasional threat. 

“I’m too tired to go out, and besides…I wanted to talk to you.”

You snort and quickly cover your face with a hand to hide your embarrassed smile. At least you aren’t missing each other one-sidedly.

“Oh really?” you smile into the receiver and lie back down on your bed.

“Yes and I’m mad at you!”

“What!? What did I do?”

“You haven’t called me _once_. _And_ whenever I text you, you don’t even send more than one message at a time! It’s like you don’t even miss me!”

“I…do…miss you,” you admit slowly. “I just didn’t want to interrupt you while you’re working. I respect your need to…focus on the concerts,” you explain quietly.

He huffs. “You still could have called,” he mumbles childishly. You hear a shift on the line before his voice comes back. “I’m still in my towel and need to put on my clothes, do you think you can hold on for five minutes?”

“Ooh calling after showering?”

“Pervert!”

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” you sing-song. He laughs before telling you to hang on. You move to lie on your other side and let your phone sit squished between your face and your pillow. A yawn claws it way out of your mouth in the silence of the call. When did you get so tired?

Your phone pings against your ear. When you pull it in front of your eyes and see a message from Jongdae with an attachment, you roll your eyes so hard you give yourself a headache. “If this is _actually_ a picture of you naked I’m hanging up on you,” you threaten.

His laugh rings through the phone, “Don’t open it then!”

“You’re the worst.”

“You asked for nudes.”

“I was joking, Jongdae. You’d think _you_ of all people would know that.”

“You were _flirting_. Flirty joking is different from regular joking.”

The two of you go on talking for a good few hours, and as much as you hate to admit it, you feel less awful after hearing his voice. The two of you barely talked about anything of importance. You listened to him talk about the last few days on tour. You hummed along as he complained. You told him about the boring days at work and you even jokingly asked if he’d been stirring up shit on purpose. It was when he started fumbling over his words that you knew your assumption was correct.

You end up falling asleep in the middle of his rant about how Junmyeon spent the entirety of the last concert being cheesy for the fans, and how it’s unbelievable how he can be completely embarrasing in both Korean and English.

You wake up to a phone with a dead battery and a deep imprint of the device in your cheek.

You plug your phone into its charger and retreat to your bathroom to wash your face and brush your teeth. You don’t have work today, and that means you’ll be perched in front of your laptop streaming TV shows and pouting at your cell phone.

Maybe some disaster will happen and you’ll have to come in to work to help do damage control. At least at then you’ll have something to do.

Two hard knocks sound at your door, and you jump at the sound. You rinse off your toothbrush and pad over to the door. Who the hell is banging on your door?

“Who is it?” you call out before looking through the small peephole.

“It’s me. We need to talk.”


	10. 10...

You drum your fingers against your pajama pants and glance around your apartment uncomfortably.

Thank god you put on pants before opening the door.

You deserve a high-five for thinking quick enough to pull this thick sweater over your tank top clad upper body in the half second you had to say ‘coming’ before opening the door. This could have been so much worse.

“You have a nice home.”

“Thanks,” you say neutrally, focusing your attention on the face of your unexpected guest. A middle-aged man that you know is one of SM’s top lawyers. His face is fairly unpleasant to look at, but you know that it’s from all of the stress that he’s probably been subject to. His glasses reflect the light from your ceiling and his suit is impeccably crisp, black, and clean.

It makes you feel all the more out of place in your house clothes…even though _he’s_ in _your_ house. You shouldn’t be feeling uncomfortable. He came here to talk to you. So, you can’t be in trouble.

They need you for something.

The thought makes you relax and square your shoulders. Sitting more erect in your seat and waiting patiently for what it is that was so urgent that a lawyer came to you unannounced on your day off. It's extremely unprofessional in your personal opinion, but it's not like you can do anything about it except maybe complain to HR when you go back into work. You run through the potential reasons the legal team may need your help, but can't think of anything recent that would have them needing the help of the communications team.

Unless they know about Jongdae…

Steeling your face, you rest your hands in your lap and keep any emotions that may portray guilt off your face.

“You may be wondering what my reasoning is for coming to your apartment so early in the morning,” he starts in that commanding voice experienced lawyers have. You are unmoved. You’ve dealt with lawyers, journalists, other PR people. You’re used to playing this game. It's all a big game of chicken.

“I assume it must be urgent since you arrived without giving me any kind of forewarning. I don’t recall any mention of representatives being able to come to my home unannounced anywhere in my job contract,” you say pointedly, adding a smile to soften the words.

He laughs, but it lacks any genuine humor. “I apologize for this. It could not wait until Monday and I was in the neighborhood,” he explains. You nod in understanding even though you don’t know what that has to do with anything. “Let me get to the point. I’ve been tasked to ask you to go on the North American leg of the EXO’rdium tour.”

You resist the urge to snort out a disbelieving laugh. _You_? On the tour with _them_!?

“May I ask why I’ve been chosen to do an assignment that has nothing to do with what I was hired for?”

“After…last year’s rocky concert in the West we felt the need to have a representative from the company who is experienced enough in dealing with controversy and miscommunication there to act as something like a translator for the team. Because you went to college in a western university and are in charge of your department, you were the obvious choice. You would be on call the whole time, but we will be paying you a bonus for the time, effort, and abruptness of the request.

“You would have to be present on stage during the talking pertions of the concerts to translate. Fans were unsatisfied with the translators we found last year, and because of your familiarity with the group and with the languages you’ll be translating in, you’ll be able to give the most accurate translation to the fans. You would of course be housed in the same hotel, but you will arrive and depart separately to avoid any…misconceptions. We’re prepared to negotiate with you on the terms of the project because of your known…” he smiles sourly “…unfriendly relationship with a particular member of the group.”

You can’t help the snort that escapes this time.

He clears his throat and continues on, “We wanted to get the offer to you as quickly as possible so that you have enough time to think it over; therefore, I have chosen to speak to you in person today. We would appreciate a response as soon at Tuesday. You can reach me or my colleagues at-”

“One moment, let me grab my phone so that I can save this.” You jump up from your couch and swipe your phone off the charger. They actually want you to go overseas for work? They almost never have you leaving your office for anything like this. You’re extremely tempted to go. For a handful of reasons.

Hey, a bonus. That’s fucking awesome. And traveling? Heck yes. It’s…kind of, you know, a plus that you might be able to hang out with Jongdae…if you’re careful.

You open up your notepad on your phone and type down names and emails as he rattles them off. Once he’s done he hands you his business card for extra measure, (you’ve already got like 30 of these sitting in the junk drawer in your office), and thank him by taking it. 

Just as he stands up to leave, your god damned phone starts to buzz aggressively on your couch cushion. You see the name flash on your screen clearly.

Jongdae.

The lawyer sees it as well and quirks an eyebrow in question. “Do…all of your clients have your personal number?”

You sigh. “Yes. It’s the easiest way to reach me during emergencies. If you wouldn’t mind…I need to…attend to whatever catastrophe has occurred.” The man nods in understanding as you swipe up your cell and hold it to your ear while guiding the guest to your door. “What the _fuck_ do you want now? If I hear a single word out of your mouth about lost sex toys again I’m going to quit this fucking job and dedicate my life to eradicating every sex shop off the face of the planet only so that your next representative doesn’t have to deal with this _shit_ ,” you growl into the receiver of the phone.

You smile at your guest apologetically and hold your door open for him to exit. He bows and sends you an uncomfortable, but no longer concerned with your call, smile back.

“Whoa where did this come from!? Listen, that was _once_ and I apologized and you were fine with it before why are you yelling at me about it again? You aren’t actually going to quit, right? Hey! Are you still there?” you close the door to your apartment and exhale in relief while Jongdae rants on the other end of the line. 

“I’m here,” you interrupt his mumbling to himself to reestablish your presence. “And were you using banmal? I’m _older_ than you, you little shit.”

“You heard that?” he asks sheepishly. You snort. “ _Noona-_ ”

“Don’t try kissing up again. You only call me noona when you’re in trouble.”

“Because I _am_ in trouble and it makes you less mean. And also, why _am I_ in trouble exactly? I called and you started yelling at me!”

You walk over to your couch and sit down with a groan. “A lawyer came to my apartment. When I picked up he was leaving and he’d seen you calling.”

“ _Shit_. Is everything okay? Did he threaten you? Did he pull out photos and tell you that you have no option but to go in hiding?”

“This isn’t a gangster movie…but yeah I’m fine.”

You hear his voice muffle as he moves away from the receiver to talk to someone in the room with him. You look around your room, patiently waiting for him to give some kind of signal that you need to hang up. It’s not like…you’re scared of his members finding out but it would be…inconvenient from a professional standpoint. As yourself and as their PR official.

“Sorry, Baekhyun came in the room and caught me on the phone, but it’s fine! He doesn’t know it's you,” he tells you. “What did the lawyer want?”

“Oh…uh it was kind of a job offer-”

“Are you changing jobs?!”

“Jesus Christ let me finish!” you laugh. “I’m not changing jobs. I’m still stuck here with you guys.” He sighs in relief and you smile to yourself. “They…want me to work overseas for a bit as a translator, and on site as a PR representative for…you guys. On your American leg of the tour,” you reveal.

“Really!? You’re joking right? You’re tricking me..."

“I’m not! He just came in to propose it to me. It’s still on the table though, I have until Tuesday to accept or decline.”

“You’re going to accept it, right? You have to. Please!”

“I need to think this through. And so do you! It’s not like this is some vacation. I’d still be working, and so would you and it’s not even like…we can be _together_ while being together. Are either of us…ready to do something like this? It’s a risky move and could be a huge step if I were to agree to go.”

He goes quiet. “You’re right. However, I trust you and know that you won’t do anything that will put either of us at risk. And I’ll be on my best behavior. We’ll…act the way we do at the office. It will be entirely professional; I don’t want you to turn down an offer like this just because you’re afraid that I don’t have enough self-control to be around you as a coworker.”

“No, no it’s not you Jongdae. I do trust you. I know that you wouldn’t do anything dumb. You’re smart and _usually_ good at this whole idol thing. I’m just…I don’t know. I don’t know if _I_ can handle this.”

“What do you mean you don’t know if you can handle… _this_?”

“I don’t know Jongdae. Just…it would be so easy to get caught if I go. If I go…as a girl I’m already going to be attacked for being around you all and if your fans get even the slightest feeling that there’s something going on between the two of us, I-I’m fucked. I’ve dealt with lawsuits but I’ve never been on the receiving end on actual _death threats_. I’ve read them. I’ve seen the attacks. I…I wouldn’t be able to handle something like that if it were to actually happen to me okay.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I don’t know! I’m just thinking that this isn’t a good time for us to be doing… _this._ You know? The whole dating thing. Maybe…”

“I’m coming over.”

“What?”

“We aren’t having this talk over the phone. If you want to breakup I want you to say it to me in person.”

“Y-You can’t! Aren’t you in-”

“I’ll see you in a few hours,” he says before hanging up the phone. Silence greets you on the other end of the line. You stare at the device in horror. Is he actually flying over? Now? What the fuck is wrong with him!? You try dialing his number again but it goes straight to voicemail.

Shit.


	11. 11...

“I can’t come in today…no it’s because it’s my day off…I don’t care _how many_ wallets he might have, we can’t have one of Taemin’s fucking wallets just floating around out there. _Figure out where the hell it is and **you** get it back_.” You hang up the phone angrily.

Your nerves are shot.

You’re agitated and on edge. It’s been hours now since you talked to both Jongdae and that lawyer, and the former could turn up at any moment now. You’ve been trying to keep yourself distracted so that you don’t jump out the god damned window from the suffocating suspense waiting for him to arrive. He still hasn’t answered his phone, and you damn sure haven’t reached out to anyone else to figure out if he _actually_ left.

He couldn’t have right? He was joking. Had to be.

You don’t know what you’re going to say when -if- he gets here, and you’ve played out the conversation 20 times in your head, all of which ended terribly.

Not to mention all of a sudden it’s like every person in your department has forgotten what it means for you to have days off. At the moment, the distraction is much needed, but it’s the _principle_. You’ve gotten calls, emails, smoke signals requesting your help. Three people even wanted to you actually come into the building for a while.

They aren’t even just bringing PR issues to you. It’s things that should be going to the advertising department, the marketing team, the lawyers. It’s like they actually think that you’re the _fix-it-all lady_. You do _crisis control_ not everything they’ve been giving you.

You should begin to make a note of it, and take it to your superiors. You’re being overworked.

Wow, you sound like your mom now.

The banging against your door stops you from your pacing (pacing that you don’t even remember getting up and doing??). You feel your heart in your throat, feet heavy, as you make your way to the door. The knocking is persistent. Loud. You can only think of one person who would be on the other side.

Your neighbors are going to think the cops are banging on your door if he keeps pounding on it like this.

He’ll get caught sneaking around with you for sure.

The idea makes you walk with more urgency, and you start to think up what you’re going to say to him when you see him. Ask him why he came all this way. Question whether his members know that he left. Stupid. Of course they would. 

You grip the handle hard and pull it open. The sight of Jongdae with his fist raised in the air mid-knock makes all your thoughts vanish. His eyes are tired and widen momentarily at the sight of you. His face hardens, lacking the usual brightness that he radiates.

“You’re going to be caught here if you knock that loud,” is all that you can get yourself to say with him standing here in front of you. You consider shutting the door and starting over because, wow did you really jump right into scolding him after he’s come all this way?

After jumping on a fucking plane in the middle of the day.

You should have asked how he was doing. Pulled him in and kissed him like you wanted to, because just the sight of him reminds you of comfort and safety after a stressful day…even though he was half the reason behind it.

He brushes past you to enter your home without a word. He’s pissed. You exhale and close your front door softly, preparing yourself for whatever is about to happen.

He’s sitting on your couch, knee bouncing and jaw set. Isn’t he tired? Did he not have enough time on the plane for him to calm down?

You decide against sitting next to him and instead sit in a chair across from him. You watch him as he looks everywhere in the room but at you. And honestly, you’re kind of conflicted. You’re dreading the impending conversation, but it’s slowly being overshadowed with the realization at how much you missed him.

Because you _really_ missed him, and he’s sitting here angry, but still looking entirely too unreal. Fucking idols and their stupid fucking good looks.

His sigh breaks through the room. “I’ve spent the last three hours figuring out what it was that I wanted to say to you,” he admits exhausted. “Three whole hours and as soon as I see your face I fucking forget _everything_.”

You smile softly and breath out a laugh. It’s funny, you felt the exact same way when you saw him. He finally trains his eyes on yours and the exhaustion is so clear on his face that _you_ feel it. “I…you look really tired. Maybe you should rest first,” you propose.

He shakes his head. “No. Minseok hyung always faces his problems head on, and I’m trying to do the same.” He breathes out hard, expelling his nerves, and stands up from his spot. “I like you…you know that. I like you a _lot_. And I… don’t want you to be uncomfortable being with me, but I don’t want to lose you. So, I want to talk. I want to know what you’re afraid of. Why you don’t trust yourself...or maybe why you don't have any faith in _us_. I want to help. I want to be there for _you_.” He walks closer to you as he tells you the things he’d rehearsed in his head. “You’re always working and putting everyone else before yourself, and it’s one of the things I admire most about you. But you rarely do anything for yourself. Do you not want to be with me? If you say you don’t then I’ll leave you alone. If it’s what _you_ want-”

“No it’s not that,” you cut in frantically. “I just-”

“Do you like me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to stay with me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust me?”

“I do.”

“Then what’s the problem? If we like each other, and want to make this work _why are you trying so hard to make it complicated_?”

“I’m not! I’m just worried about you! I’m worried about your fans! The backlash you would receive would be enormous. I’ve done the research. I’m not used to this. Being in the middle of a scandal in the making okay. This is just…a lot for me to handle. Work. This. You. I honestly thought you would have dumped me by now. I thought this would last a month at most, but it hasn’t. I thought maybe we’d get bored and go back to our separate lives, but _fuck_ it’s not going away, and it’s scaring me.

“I’ve only started liking you more, and I miss you when you’re gone, and want to talk to you when anything happens, and it’s making me feel weird and I’m not use to this feeling and not being able to accurately _describe_ what’s wrong. I just- this is just making everything so complicated and I don’t see how _you_ can’t see it.”

“Maybe it’s because it’s your job, but you’re dealing with this as if you were your own agent. Why can’t you enjoy yourself for once? I want you to listen to me, alright. Don’t worry about everyone else. The fans. The company. Don’t even worry about _me_. I’ll worry for you.” you rise and stare up at him as he continues on, his hands rest on your arms. “When you’re with me, I don’t want you to worry. I’ve got you.”

Your breath comes out shaky as you take in his words and the intensity in his eyes. Your lip quirks in appreciation. “You’ve got me?”

Seeing his smile in person for the first time since you saw him last, those long three weeks ago, sends a wave of adoration through your body. “Yes, I’ve got you. And I’m not letting you go. No fan, no lawyer, no company official, no _body_ is going to stop me from protecting you.”

“That was really sweet you're going to make me sick.”

He laughs and squeezes your arms, looking at you with that heavy look that _still_ makes your dumb heart speed up. “Are we okay now? Is everything between us alright?”

“Yeah…but we could have had this conversation over the phone. You’re fucking dying Jongdae.”

“No,” he says seriously. “We couldn’t have.” His hands run across your skin gently, his eyes just taking you in as you do the same. “I missed you…” he says softly.

“I missed you too,” you whisper back.

His head dips to press his lips against your own and you relish in the feeling. You’ve missed _this_. The feeling of him. The smell of him. Just…him. Maybe things will be okay. You want to believe him. You do.

You want to believe that you can date without problem. You’ve worked for SM long enough to know better. But if Jongdae really thinks things will work out…you’re willing to keep giving _this_ a try.


	12. 12...

Sleep. That’s what the two of you should have been doing. Sleeping.

It’s not even remotely surprising that you find yourselves doing the exact opposite. Lying in bed, talking in hushed tones, curled up against one another just rambling off the things you’d hadn’t had the chance to say when you first saw one another today.

The ‘how-are-yous’, the whispered compliments, the coy jokes that you’d started to develop as inside-jokes between the two of you. All the while taking in each other’s face and memorizing the expressions. It’s felt so long since you’ve last been this close, but it’s as if no time has passed now that you’re here together.

This goes against your entire code of ethics.

“Don’t you have a schedule? I thought you didn’t have any free time for another week?” you ask softly, hooking your ankle over his beneath your blankets.

“I…”

“You didn’t _bail_ on anything, did you?”

“No! No, never. The next 2 days I don’t have anything officially scheduled. They were supposed to be rest days until the next schedule,” he explains. You set your mouth in a line and decide against saying anything. If it’s a rest day he should actually be, you know, _resting_. Not flying here in the middle the fucking day about something as small as this was. He notices your reluctance to voice your thoughts, and narrows his eyes. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“You can’t lie to me.”

“Actually, I can. Fairly easy too,” you reply coolly, brushing off the concern with banter. Your name falls from his mouth in something you can only describe as a warning whine. Not quite a full-blown whine, but said in enough of a way that it’s almost there. “When are you flying back?”

“In the morning at 10. Will you see me off?”

“At a public airport in the middle of the morning?” you scoff loudly. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Why-”

“Jongdae. Stop whining and go to sleep. You have to get back up in like 5 hours,” you cut him off and reach across him to turn off the lights and shut down any more of his complaints. The silence and darkness wrap around you as you snuggle deeper into your bed.

“I wasn’t whining,” he whispers loudly.

“You were. All you do is whine. Everyone knows this except for you,” you whisper back with closed eyes. you figure if _you_ go to sleep maybe it’ll encourage him to fall asleep faster. The kid is still running off adrenaline, coffee, and excitement.

“I _don’t_.”

“Your leader and all your fans say otherwise.”

“All of them exaggerate.”

“They do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do _not_.”

“Do _too_.”

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of you _whining_.”

* * *

Monday afternoon you packed up your things and stared at the form that you picked up from the head lawyer’s office earlier in the day. A 20-page document outlining your responsibilities and schedule if you decided to go on the trip to North America.

You’d skimmed it and it all seemed easy enough. There didn’t seem to be any catches.

You show up. You potentially act as a translator during their free time, and then potentially act as translator for the concerts. It all depends on if they decide that the translators available aren’t good enough. For the most part, you’re on standby as what seems to be a temporary manager.

Simple. You could do that. A lot of the managers in the company (that you’ve had to deal with at least) haven’t done jack shit and absolutely suck at their jobs, so you at least know that you could do a better job than a good amount of the managers available.

You’re on good terms with most of EXO’s staff. There is that one guy that you can’t stand…but you aren’t even sure if he still works with them.

Was he even actually EXO’s manager? Maybe he was one of SHINee’s ex-managers…

Whatever he was, you hope you don’t have to deal with him.

You placed the contract in your bag and locked up your office before heading home for the day. You’d decided to look over the long document once you got home. After you’ve had a drink or something because this was stressing you out for unknown reasons.

When you turned it back in you didn’t expect a turn around to happen so fast. Not even an hour later were you called to the travel department to sort out your visas and passports. You were scheduled to meet with the tour team in three days.

The days came quickly and now, somehow, here you are sitting at a table with almost 30 other people being briefed about the leg of the tour that you’ll be accompanying them on in 2 weeks.

The meeting happening around you fills your ears like white noise. People talk around you, but you can’t focus.

The managers, the guides, EXO themselves, and then there’s you. You feel kind of awkward sitting among them. This isn’t your field of work, you aren’t used to having these kinds of responsibilities. You don't feel confident sitting among people who specialize in this specific part of the industry. And not feeling confident…is not something you like feeling.

In fact, you fucking hate it.

So, you keep your mouth shut (an uncommon occurrence) and follow the people speaking around the table with confused eyes.

You don’t even _dare_ glance in Jongdae’s direction.

“…she will be acting as a temporary staff member. As a manager, she will be available to travel along with the members, or other staff, during the time between concerts.” Applause erupts in the room and you startle in your seat and clap along after missing whatever was said. A second passes before you realize it was about you and you sheepishly stop clapping in order to stand and bow to everyone in the room.

Jongdae snickers from the other end of the table. That asshole. You mentally scowl and paste on a smile so that you can address the room. “Thank you all for allowing me to accompany you on your tour. I will do my best to make sure that nothing goes wrong and you all enjoy yourselves without any hitches.” Everyone claps once more and you settle back in your seat, praying to be swallowed up by the ground below you.

You don’t put too much effort into following the conversation happening around you, knowing it will all be re-sent out in a mass email, and instead focus your attention towards the window where two birds are chirping loudly and seem to be fighting.

An ill omen you think to yourself.

The meeting ends and you stand slowly from your seat as the room clears out. Somewhat dazed, you pick up your phone as it pings. As expected, it’s the email with all of the information that was dictated in the meeting. You set your lips in a line and decide to scan over the information.

You hear your name being called only a half second before a hand places itself on your shoulder. You turn to face it curiously.

“Jongin?” you ask with widened eyes as you identify the owner of the hand. He smiles and nods eagerly. Jongin is like a little brother to you, and for as long as you’ve worked here, he's shown a certain…fondness towards the older female staff. You wouldn’t call it flirting, not at all, but you do think it has something to do with the comfort he feels around older females because of his older sisters.

“You can speak English right?”

“That and a bit of Spanish. That’s why they brought me on. Why?”

His lips protrude out in that unmistakable pout of his as he begins talking. “I want you as my manager when we get to New York.”

You laugh softly at his words. “You have like four other managers you can travel with Jongin. Why are you specifically approaching me?”

“They aren’t good at speaking English, and when we go somewhere I feel embarrassed when the people we talk to can’t understand us,” he explains sheepishly.

You roll your eyes playfully. “I know that one of your managers is actually _really_ good at speaking English.” You nudge him with your elbow and smirk at him. “Just say you want to be around your favorite noona in New York, and I’ll consider it,” you tease him lightly.

He laughs and scrunches up his nose at having been discovered before poking your shoulder. “Fine. I want my favorite noona to show me around New York.”

“Ask, and you shall receive. I’ll make sure to help you get around when we arrive in New York. Don’t you worry your little head.” you reach up to ruffle his hair and then push him toward the door so that you can both leave. “I think I’m going to arrive before you guys, so whenever you want to meet us so I can be your tour guide just text-”

“Jongin!” your sentence is interrupted by a voice you know all too well. Both you and Jongin turn to find Jongdae strolling up to you pointing behind him. “Sehun is looking for you. Something about having you come by to help watch Vivi tomorrow.”

“What really?!” Jongin asks excitedly. He blinks quickly and places both of his hands on your shoulders. “I’ll talk to you later noona!” and then he’s sprinting down the hallway after the others.

You quirk an eyebrow and hold back the knowing smirk that wants to appear on your face. “Jongdae,” you greet him.

“ _Noona_ ,” he says with a purposeful edge behind it despite the smile on his face. “Are you busy? I have…an issue I’d like to discuss with you.”


	13. 13...

_“_ Noona _,” he says with a purposeful edge behind it despite the smile on his face. “Are you busy? I have…an issue I’d like to discuss with you.”_

You hum and glance down to your cellphone in your hand in mock thoughtfulness. “I’m actually off for the day and don’t deal with personal issues out of office, so…” you smile and make a move to escape. 

He leans closer to you, cutting off your escape route, and your heart pounds a bit harder at the proximity. He’s getting too close. You’re both in public. This is _not_ good behavior. “You had enough time to talk to Jongin,” he murmurs far too fucking close to your ear.

You place a palm on his chest and push him back slightly. Setting your professional face, you frown slightly. “If you have any concerns, I suggest bringing them to me tomorrow when I’m back in the office. Otherwise, send all correspondents to my email.” You peak over his shoulder to look down the otherwise empty hallway. When you focus once more on his face you can clearly see the mischief brimming in his eyes. What he wants is unclear, but you know if you stand here in this isolated hallway any longer, you may not come out unscathed. You don’t trust either of you alone here unmonitored.

You smile nervously and make another move to escape from the increasingly small area. You scoot around his frame only to be stopped by a hand on your wrist. Your attention flies to the hand and your mind tunes in to the burning feeling you feel spreading out from where his hand is wrapped around you.

He says your name, in that deeper version of his voice that he uses when he's at ease. You can’t afford to get fired. You can’t afford to get fired. _You can’t afford to get fired_ , you chant inside your head. Taking in a steadying breath, you raise your eyes to his face. His expression is soft. Open.

He’s so cute, you’re going to choke.

“Mm,” you hum softly.

His eyes dart over your face as he swallows nervously. “I-”

“Jongdae?” you both hear his name being called by one of his managers and jerk away from each other like children being caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

And in a way, you are.

The manager in question rounds the corner and you recognize him as their head manager (his name escapes you). His steps stutter at the sight of you both and you beg to whatever gods there are that your face isn’t burning as vividly as it feels like it is. “Oh it’s you,” the manager says. You can hear the shock and confusion in his words. He glances at the two of you and you grab Jongdae’s shoulder to turn him to his manager. With a light push, you send him to the older male and cross your arms over your chest defensively. “Was he bothering you again? I’m so sorry,” the manager apologizes upon seeing the feigned anger on your face, and you shake your head.

“No it’s fine. He was just curious about one of the common phrases listed on the American vocabulary sheet, but I know that already knows what it means,” you explain smoothly. You uncross your arms.

The manager nods and looks at Jongdae suspiciously. “Oh…alright.” You wonder how long you’ll have to pretend that the very sight of him makes you angry when it does the exact opposite. The manager doesn’t question your words though, so you can at least pretend for a while longer. “Have a good evening,” the manager smiles at you and you wave back politely. Jongdae smiles and bows at you quickly before turning on his heel and trying to run away from his manager.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that he’s probably going to get scolded. You’ve see it often enough. An idol fucks up. They come to you. The manager follows and nearly rips them a new asshole.

One, for fucking up in the first place.

Two, for forcing the manager to come see you as well. Coming to your office never bodes well. You’re like the angry principal that all the students are afraid of. But your school is the best one there is out there, so you don’t care if people are afraid to see you.

Right before they turn the corner, you see the manager grab the back of Jongdae’s neck and whisper harshly, “I thought I told you to leave her _alone_.”

You trail behind them and smile to yourself when you catch the embarrassed way your boyfriend whines, “ _Hyung_ …”

* * *

You spend the next weeks dividing up your work for your subordinates to handle in your absence and packing up all the things that you’ll need for the 3-day trip.

Luckily things at the office aren’t too busy and secretary Yoon is there to keep your roaming thoughts in order as you prepare to play manager.

Jongdae comes over when he feels like it and proceeds to do nothing but keep you company by annoying you in every way that he can.

“Hey. Hey, help me with my classwork.”

“I have actual _work_ to do right now. Why didn’t you ask me for help like 2 hours ago when I wasn’t busy?”

“We were cuddling and if I’d asked for help then I wouldn’t have been able to hold you as long.”

“We cuddle all the time…”

“And your point is?”

You snort and push him off your bed with your foot. “All of your materials are online. Why don’t you check there before asking for my help? I had a single class on marketing in college. I can’t even help you.”

Crawling back onto your mattress with a pout that would put any child to shame, he settles in front of his laptop to work quietly. You try to focus on your own paperwork for 10 minutes, but the severe lack of noise from his direction begins to unnerve you.

You peek over in his direction to find him staring intently at his laptop. His earbuds are securely in his ears and you can hear the music just faintly through them. He must have figured out what it was that he needed to find in his work.

Even when you shift in your spot on the bed he doesn’t look away from his screen. You can’t help but smile to yourself at how adorable he looks while studying.

He’d already planned on staying the night. Bringing and already having changed into his pajamas for the night. It was his idea for the two of you to sit in here and get some work done. He claimed he couldn’t focus at his dorm and _definitely_ wouldn’t get anything done if Minseok wasn’t there to study with him. “Hey,” you whisper loudly.

No reaction.

“Hey,” you hiss louder while shutting your laptop. Still nothing. “Kim Jongdae,” you say at regular volume. Okay, so he’s either ignoring you or his music is going to make him deaf.

Refusing to be ignored and refusing to let him work in peace, you crawl over and wrap yourself around him like a koala bear while he’s not paying attention. You feel him laughing before the sound fills the room. At the sound of his laugh you smile and tighten your grip around his torso. You rest your head on his shoulder after kissing his temple lightly.

“I thought you wanted me to work?” he asks, turning to give you a teasing look after pulling out a earbud and turning down his music.

“I do…but turns out I also want you to pay attention to me,” you admit.

“Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend!? She would _never_ say something like that.”

“Jongdae…do your coursework.”

“It’s kind of hard to do that with you holding onto me like this…”

“Shush. Focus,” you whisper into his ear.

“You really are something-” you cover his mouth with your hand and point to his laptop with the other. He chuckles again to himself once you go back to loosely draping yourself over him. Feeling the warmth of his body against yours lulls you into a state of ease. Sighing against him you close your eyes.

An earbud is placed in your ear, and a kiss against your cheek as you fall asleep against your, not-so, annoying boyfriend Jongdae.


	14. 14...

You arrive in New York with most of the staff a full day before the boys do. Being in North America doesn’t unsettle you nearly as much as it does some of the other staff and you quickly become the spokesperson for the group. English comes to you naturally.

_Where is the bathroom? How do we find this venue? Can you point us to this agency’s headquarters?_

You translate it all.

Two of the other members in your group of staff are alright enough at English, but are too afraid to try and use the skills that they have in context, instead choosing to fall back on you as their voice.

It doesn’t bother you in the slightest. Being in control of the situation is, of course, your favorite feeling. Especially with how out of your comfort zone you feel in this group. You might not know much about touring and how to act as a part-time manger, but you know _plenty_ about talking to people in English.

Your group goes to visit the radio station where the boys are supposed to have an interview, and you introduce yourself to their staff. You shake their hands and act as the translator for your group and the radio station as the procedure is explained and a meeting place is established. After the short meeting, you make your leave to run various other little errands while the day is still young. By 7pm everyone is visibly exhausted.

“Ugh. I’m so tired. Are we almost done for the day?”

“Mm. We don’t have anything else to do today,” you say tiredly to whichever of the four people in your car asked the question. Your eyes are closed and you’re beginning to feel the exhaustion seeping into your bones after the long day of walking around. Each of the staff members celebrate quietly around you as you all ride back to the hotel where you will be staying for the next few nights. You haven’t even gotten a chance to settle in your hotel rooms yet.

A hand settles on your shoulder from the seat beside you, and you blink dumbly when you open your eyes to see one of the production assistants who is smiling thankfully at you. “Thank you for helping us all out today. Sorry we were so bothersome,” he says nervously.

You shake your hands quickly. “No, no. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m glad to be helping. I haven’t gotten the chance to work out in the field before, so I should apologize for how much of a nuisance I’ll be for you guys while I’m here. I have no clue what I’m doing,” you admit with a laugh. He breathes out a chuckle and you take note of the slight pink dusting across his cheeks.

You decide not to investigate.

“Well uh- you don’t have to worry! We’ll all help you out!” he assures. Another head peeks over from behind his seat. A girl a bit older than the guy next to you. Why the hell didn’t you ask for everyone’s names beforehand?

“He’s right. What you have to do isn’t that hard and you can always ask us questions if you get confused!” she says happily. You smile thankfully and look from the girl to the boy.

“I uh, hah. Sorry, but I don’t think I got you guys’ names.”

The girl smacks a hand to her chest. “I’m Jennie, and this,” she smacks the top of the boy’s head. “This is Minhyuk.” Minhyuk cringes at the slap from the girl above him and scowls in her direction. “I think everyone else is older than you except for us,” she informs you.

You blink quickly. “Really? I’m the third youngest here?”

Jennie nods eagerly and leans on the headrest of Minhyuk’s seat. “But let’s be friendly.”

“Cool,” you agree lightly. “Nice to meet you guys. I hope we can all get along well.” Jennie brightens at your words and immediately dives into her entire life story as if the two of you have been friends for your entire lives. You listen to her words in amusement. You’ve never had any actual friends within the company.

This is nice.

You get to the hotel and Jennie latches onto your arm claiming you as her roommate. You snort but don’t argue. You’d rather stay with her over the older women who haven’t even tried to talk to you (outside of having you be there to ask the Americans questions).

Jennie takes the room card and opens the door to your room while you drag in your bag behind her. The room is spacious, really clean, and, you think, a bit over the top. Especially for just a couple of nights in New York.

“Wow! This place is amazing,” Jennie gasps as she plops onto the large bed closest to the window. You roll your eyes at her playful personality and throw your bag on your bed before walking to the window and looking out at the night view of the city. “Have you ever been to New York before?”

You nod wordlessly, smiling a bit at the breathtaking sight of the bustling city. “When I was still in college I came here once. I didn’t have a view nearly this good, but I still had a good time.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Uh…I went on a ferry. I went to the top of the Empire State Building. Went shopping. Roamed around Times Square with friends.” The memory makes you nostalgic. “I had fun,” you tell the younger again.

She blinks at you owlishly before smiling wide at your words. 

“You’re so cool,” she breathes. You cough nervously. You definitely aren’t used to hearing this.

* * *

Early the next morning the managers and the boys arrive, and everyone is asked to meet after the members settle into their rooms.

"Hurry up!” Jongin says loudly once you walk out of the elevator into the lobby where everyone is meeting up for the first time on foreign soil. Your eyes widen at the sound of his voice and Jennie looks at you in surprise.

“You’re friends with them?” she asks quietly beside you.

You set your lips in a line. “Kind of. I’m one of their…bosses in a way.”

“So you aren’t new!?”

“New to _this_. Not new to SM,” you clarify. She tilts her head to the side in silent question, but you can’t get yourself to explain any further.

Because you can see Jongdae.

Clear as day and as if he’s glowing among the little crowd of SM staff. _Professional_. You must remain professional with him.

You avoid him like the plague right off the bat. Moving directly towards Jongin who is all but bouncing on his heels excitement. 

The smile that finds its way on your face is genuine as you approach the younger member of the group. He immediately grabs onto the sleeve of your shirt as you all wait for instruction before separating.

Trying not to look at Jongdae provides to be a harder task than expected. He looks fairly tired, but you can feel his excitement as he and Minseok chat animatedly a few people away. He hasn’t looked at you once.

You keep the sadness off your face. You need to get a fucking grip. There’s _no way_ you’re going to let Jongdae out play you at this…game. If he can act casual with you…you sure a shit can do the same.

“Are you okay? You look out of it…” Jongin’s voice, and slight tug on your sleeve, snaps you back to attention and you focus back in on your surroundings to realize you started glaring off at nothing.

Sheepishly you smile and nod your head. “I’m fine. Still a bit jet lagged I suppose. How was your ride? You don’t seem half as tired as you should be,” you quickly turn the conversation away from yourself and listen as Jongin explains how he’s used to the jet lag and slept a long time on the plane, and you quickly lose focus again because you can smell the cologne Jongdae likes using and it’s making your stupid god damned heart pound.

Alright you’ll admit it. This is _way_ harder than you thought. Maybe _you_ don’t have good self-control…

“As long as everyone has a travel partner, you are free to go. Remember to return with enough time to rest before tomorrow. We have a long day starting early that morning.” At those words the group begins to separate and you’re ready to sprint off as long as you can get as far as you can away from Jongdae.

Jongin drapes his arm over your shoulder and you open your string bag so that he can put in his wallet. You learned last time you were here that this was a good way to prevent pick pocketing. He catches on without you having to explain once he sees your phone and wallet inside.

As he’s putting any other valuables he can find in his pockets in your bag, you catch Minhyuk waving enthusiastically as he walks over.

He jogs to the two of you and smiles happily at Jongin. Since when do they know each other? “Can I tag along with you guys? I didn’t have anywhere special that I wanted to go,” he says.

“Yes, but we have to go to a…pharmacy first. I need medicine,” Jongin tells the male staff member. He looks at you with widened, questioning eyes and you shrug noncommittally before slinging your bag around your shoulders.

“Alright. To a pharmacy we go!”

* * *

After picking up some medicine from the pharmacy (to which Jongin was _way_ too fucking amused about the size of the store and the pills), you begin an impromptu tour of Times Square. The toy store, the shops, the restaurants. You even pose for a few pictures with the two in front of some of the people in costumes.

Jongin and Minhyuk are fun to wander around with. Their enthusiasm and willingness to bring you into their conversations makes the entire experience even more enjoyable. You laugh so hard that you’re almost in tears by the end of it.

You completely forget about Jongdae for a few hours.

Once the two of them are fairly tired out, Minhyuk suggests getting pizza before returning back to the hotel. You use Minhuk’s phone to google the best places around and lead the way while they giggle and talk like teenage girls behind you.

“This place is supposed to be really good, I’ll just order a large pizza and we can share it. I’ll pay,” you tell them as you take a seat within the small pizzeria.

“No you shouldn’t pay. You’ve been taking us around all day one of us should pay,” Minhyuk speaks up.

You snort. “Alright. You don’t have to tell me twice. Take the bill fellas,” you say with a smirk as a waitress walk over to your table.

“Hey-”

“ _Hi_ ,” you chirp to the young woman who comes us to you with a smile, cutting off Jongin’s complaints.

“ _Welcome. Do you know what you’d like to order today_?”

“ _Yes, actually. Can we get one large pepperoni pizza please_?”

“ _One large? Yes Ma’am. Would that be all_?” You glance at the two boys.

“Do you guys want anything else?” you ask in Korean. They both shake their heads, so you turn back to the waitress. “ _Can we get three glasses of water_?” you ask her. She nods and scribbles it down in her notebook.

“ _Your order will be right out_ ,” she says. When she walks away you reach into your bag to grab your phone. You’d managed to avoid looking at it all day so far, and you know there has to be at least one notification from work that you need to look at.

You feel far worse when you’re greeted with something even more horrifying than that.

45 messages from Jongdae.


	15. 15...

Just the sight of the number of messages takes you by surprise, and you find yourself quickly hiding your phone in your lap. You look across the table to see if the other boys caught wind of your utterly _obvious_ and straight up weird behavior. Minhyuk is busy looking at his own phone (thank the heavens), but Jongin gives you a look that makes you uncomfortable. Strange. He’s acting…strange.

What the fuck is Jongin hiding?

“What’s wrong?” he asks with a lift to his voice, unfitting of the question, that immediately puts you on edge. He knows something. He knows something and you don’t even know how to pull it from him without being too obvious.

“Emergency,” you say smoothly. You hold up your locked phone with its black screen. “I’ll be back. I need to make a few calls.”

He rests his cheek on his palm and smiles knowingly as you scurry out of the door. The breath you take in is shaky. Fear fills you. At what the messages contain. At what oblivious-ass Jongin has knowledge of. Maybe it isn’t about Jongdae. Maybe he thinks you have a _different_ secret boyfriend.

God, you wish (no you don't).

You sit at one of the tables outside and open the string of messages you received with a pounding heart. As soon as the messages appear you sag in relief.

Most of them are pictures. Selfies and scenery from throughout the day. Between every few pictures there’s words describing what he was doing.

He sent you updates while he was with Minseok.

Something inside of you tugs miserably as you read his words.

**Jongdae:**

>I got you a really pretty jacket! I told Min it was for me:3

>Update: he didn’t like the jacket I bought:(

>We’re waiting in line waiting for food and im bored, why aren’t you answeringgggg????

>helloooooooo

>wah! I see you and jongin! Stop annoying the mascots you nerds

>youre having more fun with jongin than you ever do with me, im jealous

>meanie

>And youre ignoring me. Youre the worst girlfriend in the world

>I’m kidding, you’re amazing. I<3u don’t hate me

After that it’s just cute pictures of him and Minseok and a few creepy grainy pictures of you Jongin and Minhyuk laughing behind one of the 400 people in Batman costumes. The heart in his last message admittedly makes you feel…some kind of way. He wasn’t serious when he sent that why are you acting like he just proposed to you?!

You hold a hand to your racing heart and take in a breath before calling the man who’s spent all day sending you messages even though you haven’t responded to a single one. Maybe you _are_ a terrible girlfriend.

It rings for a long time and you assume he won’t answer (as he probably shouldn’t because you’ve been a shitty girlfriend and wow you can’t believe you actually missed all of his messages) but right before it goes to voicemail he picks up.

He huffs into the phone but says nothing.

You sigh. You deserve this. “Hi…” you murmur softly.

“Oh you managed to find time to talk to me now?”

Excuses roll off your tongue as soon as you hear his voice. “I can explain ok! So I put my phone in my bag as soon as we were leaving the hotel because I didn’t want it to get stolen or anything, right? And I didn’t think that I needed to check it. You didn’t even look in my direction this morning so I didn’t think that you’d even _send_ me anything so-”

“Wait, I thought you _wanted_ me to ignore you. Wasn’t our whole plan to not be caught around each other? Limiting interactions was your idea you know.”

“Yeah okay but-”

“Is that a whine I hear in your voice? Aw my baby wanted me to talk to her. My heart is fluttering.”

“Stop teasing me you-”

“Don’t worry baby. I always want to talk to you. I had to try so hard to pretend you weren’t there.”

You bite down on your lip to keep from smiling. Why is he so good at making you feel like mush? “Don’t call me baby. I’m older than you,” you mutter childishly. His laugh rings in your ears bright as ever and suddenly everything in the world feels right. The heart from that one message he sent you surfaces in your mind once more. You wonder if he was using it lightly, or maybe it was a casual way of…saying those three words without actually saying them.

You’re afraid to ask him.

“Are you still with Jongin? I want to see you…”

You shake away your thoughts and look inside the pizza place to see both Jongin and Minhyuk eating away at the food you forgot you even ordered. “Oh shit, yes. We’re eating pizza, but we’ll be back at the hotel in 30 minutes or so. I’ll see you then?”

“Alright. Hurry back!”

You glance at the two boys eating as you distractedly finish your conversation. “Yeah, okay. Love you, bye.” You hang up your phone and stuff it in your bag once again.

One step towards the door and you realize what you said.

You’re literally…a dumbass.

When you walk to your table, Jongin gives you weird looks. Funny looks. Eyebrow raises and secret smiles that seem to hold too much knowledge. Your face feels hot from embarrassment. At the words you accidentally said to Jongdae, and now because of Jongin’s looks.

This has been the worst 10 minutes of your life. “Uh I need to head back to the hotel. Can we wrap this up and go?”

Minhyuk nods and takes a long sip from his drink as he tries to finish it off. You keep your eyes trained on him as you try to pretend you don’t feel Jongin staring you down from your periphery. Never in your life have you wanted to escape a situation so bad.

It fucking sucks that you’re leaving one embarrassing situation just to go to another. What the _fuck_ were you thinking when you were saying bye to Jongdae? Did you forget you were talking to him? Did your mind switch to its automatic response mode when you talk to you parents over the phone?

Dumbass. Dumbass. _Dumbass_.

Maybe you can feign illness and stay locked in your room for the rest of the night listening to Jennie rattle off any and everything on her mind.

Jongin pays for the food and you all travel back as a group, stopping occasionally to take more pictures. You don’t mind, seeing as it gives you time to sort out your thoughts.

As soon as you're within the hotel’s lobby, you make a run for the elevator (alright more like a brisk walk) so that you can go back to you room and wallow in worry. Unfortunately, Jongin catches your sleeve again and you’re forced to stay with him and Minhyuk in an awkward and silent ride up the elevator. What in the shit does Jongin want from you!?

You and Minhyuk’s floor arrives, but Jongin keeps his hold on your shirt. Giving up any ideas you have of escaping, you stay at his side as Minhyuk walks out. He makes it two steps before noticing that you aren’t following.

You wave sheepishly when he looks at you in confusion through the closing elevator doors. You follow into Jongin to his room on high alert, watching carefully to make sure you aren't seen. You already know what this would look like to anyone else. 

“Jongin what the hell?” your words are genuinely confused as he forces you to sit at the edge of his bed.

His arms cross over his chest. “Minhyuk likes you,” he says uncharacteristically monotone.

You scoff and cross your own arms over your chest. “How would you know? And besides, even if he does why are you even telling me?”

“He’s my friend and I’ve known him for a long time now. I just know; I can see it.”

A huff escapes you as you take in the information. Minhyuk is cute, and maybe you would have found interest in him if you’d known this like…last year.

But now it doesn’t matter. You could care less. It’s not like you’re stringing him along or anything. “I don’t like him like that. You don’t have to worry about either or us dating or anything if that’s what you wanted to talk to me about.”

His arms fall to his sides as he narrows his eyes. The look he’s giving you is one filled with what feels like frustration. As if he’s waiting for you to say more than what you have. When you blink innocently he groans. “I know you aren’t going to date him. Minhyuk likes you, but Jongdae hyung likes you way more,” he finally spills.

That catches your attention. Your eyes widen at his words and you feel like a deer caught in headlights. _He knows_.

Taking note of your frightened expression, the young idol flaps his hands around happily. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. You and him are really cute together,” he goes on to sit down beside you and pushes your shoulders while giggling like a toddler. “How long have you dating? I thought you hated him! We all thought you hated him! Is he-” 

You shove him away from you in horror. “What do you know?” you ask in a whisper. How the hell _does_ he know!?

“I know that you like him, and he likes you and you’re dating and you’re in love and you’re both the cutest couple in the company.”

Stuck between wanting to deny it all, or, pulling out more information from the boy beside you who is too happy about your relationship for it to be considered healthy, you run a hand down your face. Should you deny it or just accept that he knows?

“How long have you known?” you voice comes out shaky and tired, but if he notices he ignores it.

The bed bounces and as he wiggles excitedly in his spot. “How long have I know that he likes you or how long I’ve know you were dating?”

You pause. “Both…”

He sits up straighter and smirks. “Well…I’ve known that he liked you since like 2 years ago because after Luhan left he started doing dumb stuff on purpose so that he’d have to go to your office-” you fucking _knew_ he was doing that shit on purpose! You’re really going to castrate him for putting you through so much shit. “-and I had an idea that you were actually dating for a few weeks now. He looks at you differently now, and you act different around him.” When did he get so perceptive? How many others know about you both? “I only know for certain because I saw his texts on your phone when I was getting my wallet out of your bag at the pharmacy.” He finishes with a bright smile and you feel your stomach sinking. “So…” he says expectantly.

Waiting for you to tell him all about it as if he’s your closest girl friend, he blinks patiently. You shake your head. “I’m…not telling you anything. It’s already too risky with you knowing and…please can you just forget you even know about this? We’re trying so hard to keep this from accidentally getting out. I don’t want his career to suffer because of me. I don’t want any of your careers to suffer because of another dating scandal.”

His soft smile makes you feel terrible. Having to desperately hide your relationship feels shitty, but preserving their reputation means more to you than anything else. “You really like him don’t you?”

You stand from you spot and nod sadly. “Yeah…I do. I need to go now,” you murmur shyly. Admitting to some else makes it feel too real. You rush out of the room and debate whether you want to go to your own…or to Jongdae’s.

Unconsciously you’re pulled in his direction as your feet take you to his door. When the door pulls open and his face appears in front of your own, you feel less worried about Jongin knowing of the two of you. You don’t care that he knows you like his group member.

You like him so much that it hurts. So much that the risk of it all is putting enough pressure on you that you could die. But you keep going forward for him.

Because you like him.

No.

Because you love him.


	16. 16...

You’re pulled into the room silently, and it’s as if a switch is flipped inside of you. All coherent thought flies out of your mind, and you forget all about the things you know need to be addressed. Things that…are fairly serious and should be talked about with clear minds.

But they can wait. You just want to kiss him first.

The click of the door behind you snaps awake the longing that you’d pushed down since being around him this morning.

You throw yourself against him and roughly latch your lips to his, cutting off any greeting that he might have wanted to say, trying to express your urgency without words. Although taken back at first, he quickly kisses back with just as much resolve.

It feels good knowing you make him feel just as hopeless as he does to you.

The desperation in his actions coaxes a wanton moan from your mouth right into his. The sound seems to cause a sudden pause in his wandering hands as they find themselves on your jean clad ass.

He squeezes softly and swipes his tongue against your top lip. You press closer to him. “Jongdae.” His name comes out as a whisper. Thick with need and impatience. He hums before licking a stripe along the underside of your jaw that all but has your knees shaking. Wait. Didn’t you come in here for something? “Wait, Jongdae wait.”

His lips stall on the skin of your neck and you feel him breathe heavily, but he doesn’t pull back up. “Yes?” his voice is low and, _fuck_ , it’s doing things to you that are making it a thousand times harder to think.

“I needed to tell you something,” you’re able to murmur through the light kisses he’d begun placing along your neck once again.

“Can it wait?” his breath puffs against your skin as he drifts back up and presses a soft kiss against your lips. “I’ve been waiting all week to see you, just…can the talking wait?” he asks quietly, eyes piercing into yours with unrestrained want.

Without thinking, you nod.

“Good,” he sighs happily.

His hands drag up your sides and burn a path as they run beneath your shirt against your skin. The shiver it elicits makes him laugh against your lips. You grunt as you're backed into the wall next to the door, but the sound is swallowed once his lips move to suck on your lower lip. His hips roll against you and your body responds eagerly, leg lifting to hook around his hip so you can feel him more directly.

He drops his head to the crook of your neck and moans, sending waves of anticipation through your body. You grip his hair tightly and try to grind against him as best you can with your god _damned_ jeans.

Why are you still wearing your fucking clothes?!

Pulling your fingers away from his scalp and pushing him back marginally, you try to get his attention on your words. His eyes are hooded when you capture them. “Clothes.”

He nods along with the statement, or maybe it was a command, and pulls his own shirt over his head while you pull your string bag off your shoulders and drop it at your side. His fingers grip at the hem of your shirt and you allow him to yank the shirt above your head. The air conditioning in the room hits your heated skin and goosebumps arise. Not giving your mind enough time to dwell on the sensation, you drop to your knees and link your fingers through the loops of his pants.

You feel him tense beneath your fingers as they run across this happy trail. Leaving lingering kisses along his abdomen, you make slow work of unzipping and slipping his pants down. He’s restraining himself poorly.

The strained “please,” you hear from above you signals another wave of excitement to run through your body. As soon as his jeans hit the floor, he kicks them off. You press the palm of your hand against the growing wet spot of precum on his grey briefs. Leisurely, you drag you hand up and down the clothed heat of his length.

“What do you want Jongdae?” you ask, blinking up at him with a smirk that is anything but innocent. His groan comes from somewhere deep in his throat, and the way his eyes flutter closed at the slight pressure you add to your stroking does nothing to slow the dampening of the underwear between your legs.

“I want… _ungh fuck_ , fuck I-”

Your thumb presses beneath the head of his clothes erection and he hisses in a breath and shudders beneath your touch. “I can’t do anything unless you tell me what you want,” you murmur, lips connecting with the skin of his hipbone skin as you take the band of his briefs and slowly pull them down. His cock springs free and hits your cheek leaving a streak of precum in its wake. His moan is louder this time.

“ _Your mouth_ ,” he grunts, hips canting forward to match his words.

Your hand wraps around him and you savor the feeling of it jerking hotly in your palm before wrapping your lips around the tip. His (barely there in the first place) control vanishes as one hand hits the wall above you and the other curls tightly in your hair.

Swipes along the underside of him dick gets the best reactions out of him, long groans that you could get off to alone. You moan against his length and give him full reign to fuck your mouth as you do your best to slacken your jaw and drag your tongue against him when you can, while putting the rest of your focus on breathing and not letting yourself gag at the feeling of him hitting the back of your throat.

He pulls away from you without warning and a long string of saliva connecting your mouth to his dick falls between you. You gasp and wipe at the spit collecting around your mouth. “I don’t want to come, not yet” he pants. It looks painful, how hard he is, and you try not to think about the amount of restraint he must have mustered up in order to pull away. You stand up to meet his eyes, and you can tell he can see your own chest rising and falling in anticipation.

“Do you have any condoms?”

“Aren’t you on the pill?” he asks, trapping you between his arms and pressing against you.

“Yes but I don’t want to risk it,” he kisses your collarbone and you sigh. “I can’t go off and buy a morning after pill without pulling suspicion to myself,” you explain. You’re proud that you can still think with him rubbing against you. He groans in frustration. You’re not risking an unwanted pregnancy because of temporary lapse in judgement.

You might not be able to fuck, but you can do other things.

Taking the initiative, you push him backwards to his bed. “I guess we’ll have to do without.” He watches as you unclasp your bra and step out of your ruined underwear (which sucks because you really liked that pair) before crawling over him and settling your soaking heat on his thigh. A whimper slips from you and you breathe deeply to control yourself.

“What are you-”

“Shut up, and let me do something,” you murmur, rolling your hips against his thigh. God, you’ve wanted to do this for a while now, but you never knew how to ask. You wrap your hand around him and try to pump while coating the expanse of his thigh in your wetness.

His hand wraps around yours to assist in stroking his length. You can’t seem to pay enough attention to both yourself and him, so you let him take charge of moving your hand over his cock and you focus on shamelessly humping his leg. Eyes closed as you chase the release that’s _right_ _there_ just out of reach, you moan pathetically. His thigh twitches beneath you as he nears his own, and his choked moan is what gives you just enough to push you head first into your climax.

The spasms of your body are followed closely by the feeling of his muscles tensing and twitching below you as his stomach and your intertwined hands are covered in the result of his orgasm.

Once you find the ability to open your eyes again, you’re both panting and Jongdae is looking at you with wide, awed and emotion-filled eyes. “That was so hot.”

You can do nothing but laugh.

His arms reach up to pull you flush against his chest and you groan as the feeling of his cooling cum sliding between your bodies. “Jongdae!”

“Shut it, just give me a minute to hold you. We can wash up in a minute,” his voice is laced with an amount of affection that makes your body tingle happily, and you give in to the request easily. Melting into his touch, not caring about the mess of fluids on both of your skin.

One shared shower full of cleaning and innocent kisses later, you towel off and settle on his bed while he pulls on a new outfit. He slips a shirt from his suitcase over your head and offers you some ill-fitting shorts.

He wraps his arms around you and leans his head on your shoulder. “We should see a show on Broadway.”

A Broadway date? It actually sounds really nice. “We should…” you agree. Biting your lip nervously, you turn around in his arms so that you can face him. “…but we have some things to talk about first.”

He blinks innocents but finally nods. “Okay…what about?”

“Jongin knows,” you start bluntly. No point in beating around the bush. “He knows about us.”

His expression doesn’t change. “Okay?”

“Okay? Really that’s _all_ you have to say? Is this not a problem?” you feel unsettled by his nonchalance. He pulls you closer and shakes his head with a sly smirk playing across his lips.

“Nope,” he murmurs, breath ghosting against your lips. You frown and pull back before he can try and distract you with kisses. Knowing you’ve seen through his plan, he sighs. “I’m not worried because he won’t tell anyone, and Junmyeon hyung also knows so he’ll make sure it doesn’t get out.”

You gasp. “You told Junmyeon!?”

“No, he just…figured it out,” he shrugs noncommittally and smiles playfully leaning back to peck your lips. “I did accidentally tell Minseok hyung though,” he adds. You splutter and he laughs before running his hands gently across your skin.

Not that you don’t like it, but he’s acting awfully affectionate. The light kisses and lingering touches within the span of the 20 minutes since you both decided to start moving around the room again is suspicious.

Suspicious, and you have a feeling you know the reason behind it.

“What is up with you? Why are you acting so…” you wiggle your fingers around and lose you train of thought at the need to run your thumb across the bottom of his lip. His lips part unconsciously.

His eyebrow ticks up with the beginning of a wide grin breaking out, and you know the answer isn’t going to be good. Or at least…not something you’re ready to hear him utter. “What? Can I not kiss my girlfriend who lov-” your hand smacks over his mouth. You can’t bear to hear him tease you.

“Don’t! Don’t…” you exhale and he watches you closely. Your explanation tumbles off your tongue in shaky syllables as you try to make it seem like less of a big deal. “I wasn’t thinking when I said that, and I really hoped you hadn’t heard me. I was just distracted and it really didn’t mean-” the words fade as he wordlessly slides your hand down and settles it on his chest right above his heart. It’s beating as hard as your own.

“I love you.” Your eyes widen at his words and at the way his heart pounds just a bit harder beneath your palm. You swallow at the intensity in his eyes, it gets far too hard to breathe, and holy shit he didn’t actually just- “I’m in love with you,” he repeats just as serious as the first utterance. “I love you. Or…I love you too. I don’t know. I want you to know that I mean what I’m saying, so I’m letting myself- I’m giving you my heart to feel so you can feel that I mean this. I want you to know how hard my heart beats around you. Every time without fail.

“If you meant it…what you said on the phone, and even if you didn’t, it doesn’t change how I feel. I’m…irrevocably in love…with you.” he whispers the last of his words and keeps his eyes on your own.

You expect a change in them. For it to look different from the looks he’d given you before, but it doesn’t. It’s the same… _exact_ look. The one he gave you hundreds of times over the months you found yourself involved with him. In times even before you’d even realized you liked him.

It’s the same look, but now you have the words to describe it.

Love.

You want to cry. No, you don’t. You want to run out of the room and fly on a plane back to Seoul and hide in your bed for the rest of your life in giddy solitude because he _loves_ you and this isn’t a dream. It can’t be because you feel his heart beneath your palm beating fast and steady as he looks at you with that _look_ that promises to learn your secrets, and unravel your heart so that he can make a home within it.

“I-” why won’t your tongue work? In all the times you’d had to talk, it never failed you. When you need it most, it decides to go on vacation. You blink back tears. Push back fears and worry. You just want to enjoy this. Enjoy feeling so high and happy that it feels like your own heart might pop out of your chest if you let it.

His nervous laugh pulls you back to reality, and you clench your hand around the shirt covering his heart. “Did…you mean it?” he asks a bit breathless.

A whimper. That’s what you give him. A sad whimper that quickly turns into you mushing your lips against his repeatedly. Hard enough that you might bruise them if you keep it up. “Yes,” you manage. You nod your head vigorously. “Yes, I meant it. I love you too Jongdae.” And it feels right to say it.

He brightens and exhales so hard that he slumps over. His hand squeezes yours. “Thank god, I felt like I was going to die waiting for you to say something,” he admits. He laughs then, and you want to do nothing except hug him tightly and never let him go.

You throw yourself on top of him and try to do just that.


	17. 17...

The rest of the trip goes by in a blur. A flurry of rushed meetings, long rehearsals, with hidden proud smiles on your part, and late nights sneaking to each others rooms despite the exhaustion you both feel as the days go on.

Being apart becomes just a bit harder after having said ‘I love you’.

You can guess that you’ve said it maybe four times (verbally) since then, while he’s done it any chance he gets. It’s not that you don’t want to say it…you’re just afraid that if you say it too often, it won’t mean as much. It feels like Jongdae is trying to make a point of proving that exact thought wrong.

He seems to get off on saying it out of nowhere and leaving you flustered.

Jongin also seems to have too much fun just _knowing_ about you both; he hasn’t said anything to anyone, but you see it on his smug fucking face. And now that _you_ know Junmyeon and Minseok know as well, you catch them sharing secret smiles with Jongdae and giving you eyebrow raises that would have embarrassed you if you even _cared_ what they thought anymore. At this point you’re too happy being happy.

The concert in Mexico nearly blows out your eardrums and L.A is stressful, but being able to get on that plane back home brings you so much relief you don’t even feel the fatigue. All you can think about is lying in your bed and knowing you have regular work to return to. All of the traveling and hustle and bustle of being a manager _definitely_ isn’t for you.

You _will_ kind of miss it though. The trip as a whole at least. It was fun. In more ways than you care to admit.

When you walk through your apartment door after the 12 hour flight, the first thing you do is drop your bags in the hall, walk into your room, and flop right on top of your covers.

Fuck, it’s good to be home.

On the plane ride, you’d planned on unpacking your things and at least starting a load of clothes before relaxing. In fact, you end up doing nearly the exact opposite. Instead of doing anything even remotely productive, you shower, undress, and camp out in your living room to marathon watch The Return of Superman and just _enjoy_ being home.

Not an ounce of guilt is felt for the next hours.

You know that you should get some sleep at some point soon, but the jet-lag refuses to let you. Maybe you’ll end up passed out here on the couch in another hour. Who fucking knows.

Your door beeps and opens with a click in the middle of your marathoning and you pause the TV when you hear “I’m home!” being called out.

The eye roll that follows is so dramatic that you could probably win some kind of award for it, if they offered awards for dramatic reactions to equally dramatic boyfriends. “You don’t live here,” a glance at the time on your phone and you see it’s almost 4am. Shit, do you have work tomorrow? “And it’s 4am. It’s creepy to break in to someone’s house this late at night.”

Jongdae finally walks into your line of vision and you both break out into smiles at the sight of one another. As if you hadn’t seen him before leaving America. “It’s not breaking in if you gave me the code to use whenever,” he comments. You bite back a snort and jump up to hug him as tight as you can. He kisses the top of your nose and you scrunch up your face in confusion.

“Cute,” he teases.

“Shut up.” You sit back in your spot on the couch and continue your show while he sits at your side and tosses an arm over your shoulder. “Did you eat?”

“Mhm. I had something before I left the dorm,” he answers distractedly. His eyebrows furrow as they flit across the television. “Are you watching The Return of Superman?” his voice lifts in curiosity. You keep your eyes on the screen as you nod and immediately decide to not verbalize any answers. Only because you know where this conversation will head. From the TV show to babies to him and finally to things about the future you don’t dare think about. “Did you…watch the episode with me in it?” the way he asks it is casual, but the slight tension in the parts of his body you can feel against your own clues you in to the intention behind it.

You fucking _knew_ it was coming. You knew it, and you know where it’s going.

He leans closer to your ear, from your periphery you can see his smile widening. Can you even get yourself to admit to him that you have? That you watched his part with Minseok maybe 30 times because it was the cutest god damn thing you’ve ever seen in your entire fucking life????

“Yeah,” you grunt out mirthlessly. He wiggles beside you, trying to act cute, and you can’t believe he really wants you to die? Like, how dare he bring up the idea of himself and babies and then act cute on top of it as if your heart was made entirely of ice and could handle something like this????

“What did you think?…” he wiggles again and tilts his head directly in front of you so that he can block the TV with his bright ass smile and expectant expression.

You exhale heavily and turn your body in his direction. “Do you really want to know?” you keep your expression neutral and hope that maybe it’ll scare him off, but you just had to be dating someone who doesn’t seem to give a single fuck and loves making you talk regardless if you appear pissed off or not. Maybe it’s some kink of his…

“I really want to know.”

The slight frown on your face deepens as you try to grab onto the words in your mind that you want to use. You have to say this right. Your relationship is still young and you could scare him off if you talk about babies. Babies always scare boys off. He blinks and wiggles again with that _god damned smile_ and it’s the final straw. You huff angrily and cave. You feel too weak when he looks like that. “It was the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life and I almost cried while I watched it,” you tell him honestly, keeping your expression even and your tone serious.

He leans backward and his mouth drops open at your words. Maybe you broke him. Holy shit maybe you really should have filtered your words a bit better. Why’d he even have to bring the topic up? It’s his fault. You were completely fine never bringing it up, but of course fucking Jongdae just _had_ to-

The weight on the couch shifts as (out of nowhere) he pounces on you and squeezes you too tight making noises you don’t even know how to define or describe. “ _You’re_ the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” he shouts and laughs nuzzling into your neck and squishing you in every way he can.

“Jongdae!” you wheeze. Wriggling around and covering his mouth with your hand you bite back your own embarrassed laughter. “It’s 4am you dumb butt, and you’re _crushing_ me,”

He moves your hand, snorts out a ‘am not’ and pushes up onto his forearms. Still trapping you beneath him, beaming as bright as ever, he asks, “You like kids?”

“…Yes. I love kids,” you answer hesitantly.

“Why didn’t you ever say so?”

“Because…that’s not exactly something people just bring up when they aren’t around kids…”

His head tilts and something shifts in the playfulness that was originally in his eyes. “So…you want to have…your own kids one day?”

You blink and feel your heart stuttering in fear. “Yes,” you manage to murmur.

For some reason, you hope that the conversation will end here, but of fucking _course_ it doesn’t. Because he’s…who he is and just _has_ to ask more. “Can you…” your stomach drops, “see yourself having kids…with me?” his words lose all confidence and volume and he sounds as vulnerable as you feel.

You’ve been dating for months. Not even that many months, but…you’re having the baby talk? You’re both really talking about the idea of having kids?? In the future?? With each other??? Jongdae as the father?? Of your?? Kids??? Your mind can’t compute it. And yet somehow your mouth moves on its own. “Yeah…”

He quiets entirely and just stares. Stares in that way that makes your heart flutter and stomach drop all the way into your ass because he’s so open, and looks so happy and content and it’s…because of you. Because he loves you and the stupid admission that you could see yourself with him years in the future starting your own family seemed to bring him some kind of happiness and-

 _Fuck_ it’s terrifying. It’s _terrifying_ because it’s been so short a time and yet somehow this feels right. It feels okay to be talking about something as serious as this even though you’ve never talked about marriage. Never talked about what you would do if news of you got out. Never even thought about the short term, forget about something as long term as this.

Maybe you fell too fast. You’re afraid…that maybe…just maybe this love will fizzle out just as quickly. It feels childish and raw.

It scares you. All of it scares you.

But when Jongdae smiles again and leans backward so that you can sit up and whispers out an awed copy of your ‘yeah’ that’s filled with as much disbelief as it is anticipation and excitement, you forget about that fear. You forget about it because he’s happy. He’s happy because of you and even if it doesn’t last as long as he thinks it might, as long as you hope it might, being able to protect that smile for now keeps you going.

You’d do anything to protect his smile.

The extent of how far you know you’d go, is kind of unsettling. It feels like a ticking time bomb is waiting below the surface of _something_ and you aren’t sure when it will explode and take you both down with it. If you can take the brunt of the explosion…you’ll do it in a heartbeat.

Minutes pass and you can’t focus back on the show in front of you. Your attention is spread between looking at him and running through the millions of thoughts flitting through your mind. Does he think this is moving fast? Maybe you should clarify…what do you even have to clarify? Maybe you should just keep your big mouth shut- “Jongdae,” your mouth is a traitor. He turns to you and you know you don’t have a chance to think through what you wanted to tell him.

“Yeah?”

“Years…” you flinch at the lack of confidence in your voice. Clearing your throat, you try again. “Years from now. I…I don’t want kids yet, but years in the future after I get married and everything. But who even knows when that will happen or what could happen between now and then between us. What I’m trying to say is I don’t want either of us to get caught up on the idea of having kids when we haven’t even been dating that long and haven’t even _thought_ about marriage and-”

“Who says I haven’t thought about it?”

Your mouth dries up immediately. You stare dumbly as he proceeds to laugh his ass off at your reaction. “You _asshole_ ,” you hiss. You smack his shoulder and groan loudly in embarrassment. He’s such a fucking- _ugh_.

He catches your hands and beams in amusement despite the fact that you’re literally (not even figuratively) dying, _dying_ , of embarrassment. You can’t believe him! “Okay. Okay sorry!” he laughs again which makes his comment seem entirely insincere. You halfheartedly try to free your hands from his grip. “I’m not crazy. I know none of this is stuff that will happen like…tomorrow. But I’m not letting you go. You’re stuck with me, you know? One day…even if its… _50 years_ in the future we’re going to be married and have two kids and-”

“I fucking swear-” you struggle in misery only to be cut off at the feeling of his lips on yours.

It’s too quick for you to respond, and he only moves back enough for you to see the crinkles at the sides of his eyes as he smiles. “I love you,” he chirps softly.

Your face heats. “Are you serious?”

“About me being absolutely in fucking love with you or the stuff before that?” you roll your eyes in mock aggravation. His eyebrow ticks up in mischief. “Of course I was serious. I’ve planned out how and when I’m going to propose to you and everything.” You gape, and he sits back in his spot to watch TV as if he didn’t just throw your _entire_ mind into disarray. “Jongdae, are you serious!?” He just smirks at your side. “Jongdae!? You can’t say something like that and- and not go on!”

“What else is on? Do you want to watch Running Man?”

You exhale in defeat. There’s not enough energy in your body for you to fight for a real response. “You’re the absolute worst…”

“Yeah…but you love me anyway,” he says triumphantly. You have no will to lie and argue otherwise because you really fucking do love him. He swings his head in your direction with an unnecessarily heart stopping smile. “I love you too.”

“Go home Jongdae…”

“But I am home?”

“ _Oh my god-_ ”

“Fine I’ll leave then-” he stands up abruptly and your arms reach out to grab him unconsciously.

“Wait no you aren’t actually-”

“I can’t believe I’m dating a tsundere…”

“I am _not_ tsundere,” you argue, letting go of his arm to prove your point. He glances down at your hands and raises an eyebrow knowingly. “I love you…I…don’t leave…” you tell him softly.

Getting the words you know he wanted to hear out of you, he smiles again and sits back down in satisfaction. “I hadn’t planned on it.”


	18. 18...

“We have a problem…”

How you hate to hear those words. 

Your attention is pulled from the PowerPoint presentation on your computer that one of your subordinates sent to you for review. Nari drops a thin stack of papers on your desk as soon as she sees that she’s gotten your undivided attention. She hurriedly opens it and her hands spread the files out for you to look over. A printed email and various photos catch your eyes upon your first glance over. You reach out and finger one of the grainy pictures taken in front of a theater you know is in New York.

You know that theater.

“Someone claims that they have evidence that one of our male idols is going out with some unidentified female. The person sent this email about 10 minutes ago, with these pictures,” she points to the email you noticed and then one of the many photos. “They’re saying it’s one of the EXO members, and that they have clearer photos. As of right now they’re just threatening to leak the information to the public, they haven’t asked for anything.” Nari’s eyes dart over the pictures as she explains what’s sitting in front of you. You take the news in silently. “Should I trash this? I know that you said we don’t entertain threats like this without undeniable proof but-”

“No,” you interrupt and take in a deep breath. “This is definitely one of the boys. This was taken while they were in New York a few weeks ago,” you explain. Her eyes widen.

“Are you sure that this is-”

“Get me everything that they sent. I’ll handle this.”

She nods solemnly and then rushes out the room. Once the door to your office clicks closed, you slump backwards in your seat and feel you world beginning to crash down around you. Just as you knew it would. You swallow heavily as you look at the male in the photo.

It’s Jongdae. You know it immediately, and the girl beside him is unmistakably you.

It’s the back of your heads and you’re in line among a crowd of people waiting to enter the theater. The two of you have been circled in red pen and marked with a question mark. You assume that’s Nari’s work.

No one would know that this is either of you based on just these photos. Not unless they’d seen you leave and managed to remember what either of you were wearing. You were careful not to wear anything too flashy.

You take the closest photo into trembling hands and scan over every detail in the picture.

“ _Fuck_ …” this isn’t life threatening nor is it career threatening (yet), but it’s just enough that if it gets out, fans will begin to investigate themselves and the entire situation will blow up beyond salvation. You’ve got to end this.

Now.

Once Nari comes back with everything related to the threat, you shove it in your bag and remind yourself to deal with this later tonight. You need to clear your mind before taking this on. You can’t let your fear cloud your thought process. Not with this.

You stay in the office all day dealing with anything that you can get your hands on. Anything that will distract you enough for you to temporarily forget about the bomb waiting for you in your bag. The apprehension weighs heavily in your heart.

The weight in your chest only gets heavier as the hours pass, and finally locking yourself into your apartment that night…you feel the worst you have all day.

Dumping out your bag on the floor by your bed, you begin to crack down on coming up with a solution to the looming problem. The papers are spread out around you as you look them over as if you’re some detective trying to crack a case.

What is there to crack? You know who the people involved are. You know what will happen if these grainy photos get out. You just…don’t know what to do to salvage the situation. Yet.

The things you know: It’s not impossible to figure out that it’s Jongdae in the photo. You can almost see his profile in one photo and that could be enough. If the fans figure that out, then you’ll have a scandal on your hands. If _your_ identity is revealed…best case scenario is people assume you’re some random girl and your higher ups don’t look into it. You go on working and living as usual. Worst case scenario is you’re investigated, fired, and then have a lawsuit on your hands.

You don’t like the idea of that at all.

What can you do? Let the info be released and watch as it plays out? Maybe it’ll fizzle out quickly. You can’t go after the person…not unless you want to confess how and why you know for a fact that it’s Jongdae in the blurry ass photo. No one can deduce that from the photo alone.

You’re fucked.

That’s the only thing you can say for a fact. No matter what happens…unless it just manages to vanish (which, in all your years in this business, has _never_ happened) you’re utterly fucked.

You can’t tell Jongdae about this. You know that. Not with their Japanese debut so near. Him, Baekhyun, and Minseok have been practicing and recording almost nonstop lately, you can’t tell him something like this. Not right now. Not when he has that to focus on.

Bothering him with this? Not an option. You’ll handle this on your own. You can only hope he doesn’t find out on his own.

Much to your horror, 2 hours later he calls your phone.

“Hey babe, are you at home?”

You blink at the papers surrounding you. _Lie._ “…yes.”

“Great, I’m on my way over and I’ve got a surprise for you. You’re going to love-”

“You can’t tonight.” your pulse races. “I’m busy tonight. You can’t come over tonight…sorry.” You have no reason to feel bad. You’re telling the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, but isn’t it better this way? Being too open in this industry can have consequences. The pictures glare at you as a reminder.

“…oh…uh okay.” The disappointment in his voice seeps through the receiver; trying not to let it make you feel guilty, you ignore it. “Is everything alright? Did you have a long day at work?”

“Yeah…just a long day at work. I’m going to be working all night too…”

“Don’t stay up too late. Are they giving you things that aren’t your job to deal with again? You should talk to someone; it’s unfair that you have to take on so much when it’s not even-”

“Jongdae,” you murmur his name affectionately. He quiets. “It’s fine. This is something that I need to handle. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You and I both know that isn’t true. If I don’t worry about you, then who will? Huh? Not you. So, let me do this one thing for you okay?” you rest your head in your palm and smile to yourself. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Not yet. I will in a bit. Have you?”

“Mm. About an hour ago, we went out after Baekhyun finished recording for the last song on the album.”

You sit a bit straighter and shuffle all the photos and papers into a pile. “How is that going by the way?”

“We’re nearly done. We’ve got a schedule next week in Japan to promote the album,” You catch just a hint of exhaustion in his words as he explains their upcoming plans and schedules. Your resolve to fix this as quickly and quietly as possible hardens as his voice drifts into your ear.

“Jongdae?”

“Mm?”

“…I love you,” you murmur the words, hoping to cover as much of the fear in your voice by keeping your voice low.

He doesn’t respond right away, and that scares you more than you care to admit. You sound off. You know it. You know that he knows it. “…I love you too…are you sure everything is alright?”

 _It’s not. But I’ll make it right_. “Everything is…great. Get some rest. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

You hang up before he can ask any other questions. You don’t think you can talk to him much longer and keep your composure.


	19. 19...

Some things you don’t learn in school. Some things they can’t teach you. Can’t prepare you for.

They show you the formulas. How to approach a crisis. How others have solved issues similar to your own. They give you examples and stories and lessons on the terminology of the business, but they can’t teach you everything. You graduate feeling like you have both everything and nothing you need to take on the world, and you take that and run with it thinking that you’ve been taught enough for you to learn the rest along the way.

You’ve gotten accustomed to knowing that you don’t _know_ everything. That you can’t be prepared for everything.

However, you were prepared for this. You were prepared and ready, but you forgot one thing. You forgot the very first thing you learned on your own.

That they could have never prepared you to experience how fast things can go downhill.

How quickly a situation can spiral out of control and how helpless you feel watching as everything you worked so hard to preserve comes crashing down in front of you.

Helpless. That’s a good word to describe how you feel right about now.

Standing in front of the desk of some older man with your head hung as he verbally rips you a new one, you feel exactly that. _Helpless_. The man has been angrily scolding you for almost an hour now and you’ve listened in complete silence. You can’t find your usual courage to respectfully speak up and defend yourself; this isn’t your first time standing in one of management’s offices, but this is the first time you’ve felt so _helpless_.

The pictures have gotten out. Slowly but surely, it’s reached the hands of a small group of people. It hasn’t blown up, but some sasaengs and fans have already taken to creating theories on who it is and threats are beginning to circulate. Those threats have reached management, and now you’re the one who has to take responsibility.

“Deal with this _now_ , before it gets any larger. If we have to deal with another dating scandal, you can be _assured_ that your previously secured position will be put on the line.” His words dig into you with a force that has them lodged securely in your mind. Burned on the inside of your brain. His finger juts toward your face as final silent threat, and you take that as your cue to leave the room.

“Yes sir. I’ll go work on it immediately.” You bow and dare to look in his eyes only to find him no longer looking at you but at the screen of his iPad in front of him. Guess you should leave.

Mood soured and mind pounding with the telltale signs of an approaching headache, you walk back to your office with a frown.

Nari casts you a sympathetic smile as you pass her desk, but you can’t gather the energy to fake you own. Everyone in your department knows where you were, what happened, and why you were there. You can’t be mad at them.

It’s their jobs.

Your sizable office feels like a safe haven…or a bunker. Either works. A bunker where you’re preparing for a nuclear attack that you aren’t sure that you’re strong enough to take.

Two days. You figure you have a total of two more days before the rumors pick up speed and it’s finally discovered that Jongdae is the male idol in the picture. Another day until the news outlets begin publishing articles about him and then only 30 minutes more before it becomes a trending topic on social media. By then you’ll be under fire for failing to do your job and you’ll be well…fired. You’ll be out of a job and then you have to watch as Jongdae’s own career suffers.

Is there a way to just push a start over button? To call this a trial run and go back to when you were just an employee intimately detached from any of these problems? Back to when you hadn’t made that first mistake of letting Jongdae in?

No. You don’t want that. Not really. You’d take back a lot of things, but you can’t say you wish you’d never initiated anything with him. Not with a clear conscience. Fingers find your scalp and pull on strands hard enough to make you wince. You’ve got to snap out of it. Into it. Snap something maybe even your own neck. Remember what’s work, and what isn’t.

Evading a scandal? Work. Undeniably.

Keeping the identity of the…employees involved a secret? Work…kind of. Mostly.

Jongdae…what is Jongdae? What isn’t he? He’s everything and currently at the center of it all. That’s what makes this so confusing. Are you protecting him as an employee…or as your boyfriend? Are you freaking out because of his career or because of yourself? If you weren’t both employees, then it wouldn’t be _as_ bad. The company could work with that. Pretend you were some random woman. It’s harder when the female in question is the exact one being tasked to get rid of the rumors.

Why can’t you get your head out of your own ass long enough to look at the answer that’s glaring you straight in the fucking face? You don’t want to think about it because it would mean…well it would mean doing something that would solve a lot of your conflicting problems with work and your personal life but giving up something close to your heart.

You could-

The door bangs open startling you out of your gloomy thoughts. Nari looks panicked. “I tried to tell him he couldn’t come in but-”

“It’s important,” Jongdae peeks from behind her and you see her shoulders tense in aggravation.

She almost looks threatening when she faces him with a frown. You’ve taught her well. “She’s really busy right now so unless it’s life-”

He looks directly at you when he interrupts her. “So I bought this cock ring last week and Sehun thought it was a-” your secretary reddens at his words and looks at you desperate for help while you actively chose to ignore the words coming out of his mouth. He’s just being annoying and making something up…you hope.

Your sigh is as distressed as it is tired. You wonder if you would have been more or less worked up seeing him come in your office if it was _before_ ; if it was some other girl. “Secretary Yoon…I’ll handle him. Just…” you glance at his smirking face and finally pull your fingers from your hair. “Just give us a minute.”

The glare she directs at him as she leaves the room is deadly. He waves happily in turn. Your door clicks closed and you return one hand back to your scalp and watch as your boyfriend gets comfortable in the seat he once occupied so often in the past.

“Long time no see,” he teases. A smile stretches across his face and you swallow down the lump that keeps trying to form in the middle of your throat. No crying. You _can’t_ cry. Not here. Not in front of him. Despite your attempt to seem unbothered, your silence does a _fantastic_ job of cluing him in to your mood. His grin slides off and he’s out of his seat in a second. “Shit, what’s wrong?”

That first step in your direction throws you into action. He can’t console you. Not here. You’re still supposed to hate him. If someone walks in they might be able to piece it together and it’ll be confirmed that he’s the idol involved and that he’s fucking the god damned PR Specialist. “Don’t,” you bark out the word and he freezes mid step. His face contorts in confusion; you can’t blame him. The tone of your voice was sharp and cold and exactly the voice you’d hoped to get out. “Don’t come one step closer. I want you to turn around, and get the fuck out of my office.” Calculated and even. Good. He needs to leave. You just need him to leave.

He scoffs. “Who pissed you off?”

“I’m not joking around with you anymore Jongdae.”

“And I’m not leaving.” He crosses his arms over his chest and glares at you. You laugh humorlessly at his stubbornness. “What the hell did I even do to be yelled at? You’ve been standoffish for _days_ , I have to come here to even see y-”

You stand up from your desk. “I don’t want to talk to you right now, get out. Fuck off, please.”

“No! You can’t just kick me out because you’re in a shitty mood-”

Anger boils up inside of you. You know you shouldn’t be directing this at him. You know he’s been right in what he’s saying. You have been ignoring him, and you are being a bitch for no reason other than the fact that seeing him reminds you of how utterly _fucked_ you both are if _you_ can’t get rid of the rumors arising. You can’t be in here with him. Can’t talk to him like this. Can’t even fucking face him because you’re a coward who won’t admit to her boyfriend that she’s _scared_ and alone and suffocated and- “I can’t fucking look at you right now.” You walk to your door and walk out scowling, fighting tears as Jongdae follows behind you yelling at you to stop.

Eyes are on you both as his voice and your angry steps cause a scene that is usually contained to your office. You opt to use the stairs as a means for escape instead of being stuck in an elevator, jogging down as fast as you can in your work heels. His footsteps echo behind you, but his voice has quieted to nothing.

Before you can set down another flight, his hand wraps around your wrist and yanks you through the door to whatever floor he’s caught you on. You stopped paying attention. You allow yourself to be dragged down a hall and through a door that leads to one of the practice rooms. he makes quick work of locking the door and looking around the room to check for cameras. Seemingly satisfied, his attention turns back to you.

The tears start falling at their own will. His frustration quickly shifts to concern once again as he reaches out to comfort you. You jerk away from his touch and see the hurt on his face at your action. “Talk to me, please.” His voice is patient. Quiet and calm and _god_ how can he be so fucking level headed when the world is falling apart?

“Leave me alone. I can’t do this…we can’t do this.”

“What are you saying?”

You shake your head and clench your fists at your side. “You know what I’m saying. Do I have to fucking spell it out for you?”

“You’re full of shit. You are so completely full of shit do you know that? You might think that you’re a convincing liar, but I know your heart and I _know_ you don’t mean that. What. Is. Wrong?” he steps closer and grabs onto your shoulders. You wobble on your feet. His voice lowers. “For real.”

“It’s a mess…” you whimper. The threat of a breakdown looms over your head as he waits for you to go on. You close your eyes as your throat swells. “Everything…is a mess. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

Arms pull you forward where you’re pressed against his body. For the first time since this whole thing started…you let yourself cry.

You let yourself be held in the arms of the man who loves you while you just fucking fall apart in front of him because it’s too much. All of it is too much, and you’re beginning to realize that now. The pressure of this job. The pressure of dating an idol. Constantly having your guard up and tending to everyone else’s affairs. Now that it’s you own…you don’t know where to start.

Your fingers grab him for life and he lets you.

“I don’t know what’s happening, but…I’ll come over tonight and help you figure it out-”

“No-”

He shushes you loudly and your protest dies. “You keep doing this. Always trying to take care of everything. You can’t see it, but it’s killing you. I’m not going to watch you work yourself to death,” he murmurs the words into your hair. “I know it’s serious…whatever has you like this, but I’ll try to help as much as I can so you aren’t carrying it all yourself.”

“You don’t understand-”

“We’ll talk about it when I come over later. You should go home for the day. We can deal with it tonight. Together. Okay?

Keeping your mouth closed, you don’t know whether or not to tell him that the conversation he’s expecting won’t be one that he’s going to like. Not because of the scandal and what it could mean for himself…no you’re sure he’ll be unbothered because Jongdae is like that. Too fucking selfless for his own good.

But he won’t be happy. Because you’re going to have to give something…or someone up. And in order to save him, you aren’t going to give him a say it in.


	20. 20...

You try to make it through the rest of the work day despite Jongdae’s suggestion, but after 20 minutes of distractedly staring at your blank computer screen, you decide leaving early might be for the best. No one asks you any questions as you leave, and you suspect that they all think it has something to do with your most recent altercation with Jongdae. It’s been weeks since either of you have yelled at one another in your office, and it’s the first time you’ve yelled at each other _outside_ of your office. Maybe they think your conversation has you put off beyond repair.

They wouldn’t be completely wrong.

To be honest, you don’t remember leaving the office and getting in the car. You aren’t even sure if you talked to anyone along the way. Your mind switched off in an attempt to save you from another breakdown.

Hoping being home will help turn your mind off, you lie in bed and search through your social media accounts. You see more tweets and mentions of the cryptic pictures today than you did yesterday.

Fear bubbles violently in your stomach once again. Closing Twitter and Tumblr, you pull open your email. You go through your unopened work emails only to see variations of what is basically the same message.

 _Get your shit together and fix this or you’re fired_.

Why’d you even look at your phone? It’s not like you’d find any sort of good news waiting there. You turn the device off in defeat, and decide that sleeping is your best bet for distraction. Sleep and pretend none of this is happening. Yeah…that sounds good.

Hours later you wake up; you don’t even attempt to look at your phone, already knowing what will be there waiting for you.

A shit ton of messages, threats, and words that are just going to make you feel like shit. You aren’t ready to look at it after your short session before falling asleep. Eat or shower? Which is the best thing to do while waiting for Jongdae?

As if his spidey senses were tingling or something equally creepy, he emerges. You watch expectantly as your bedroom door slowly inches open. Eyes appear and blink at you innocently. “Oh, I thought you were still sleeping.”

“I just got up,” you mumble hoarsely rubbing at your eyes tiredly while Jongdae crawls into the bed beside you. “How long have you been here?” you ask, letting yourself lean against him.

“Since 8. I didn’t want to wake you up. You looked like you needed the sleep,” he explains while holding his phone out in front of you so that you can see the time on his screen. 9:39pm shines at you threateningly. You hadn’t planned on sleeping for so long. You drag your eyes from his screen to take him in. The moles dotted along his skin, the soft uneasy smile he’s wearing in a shitty attempt to try and comfort you. His casual clothes and the way he smells just vaguely of your peppermint shampoo that you always chew him out for using. You refuse to admit that you like the smell of it on him better than on yourself.

“Did you use my shampoo again?”

He blinks three times before the pout starts. “I came all the way here to console you and didn’t want to walk around smelling like sweat so I showered okay. What if I’d bought my own shampoo huh? Maybe I brought my own shampoo and it just happens to smell like yours-”

“It smells nice,” you interrupt him. His mouth hangs open mid-complaint but the words have stopped cold. “I was going to say it smells nice.” You frown sadly at yourself. Do you get angry so often that he felt the need to defend himself so strongly? You look down at the covers covering your legs, “You could have gotten in the bed earlier too…I wouldn’t have minded,” you complain softly.

A pause, and then he breathes out a laugh. His hand sneaks beneath the blankets to squeeze yours and you exhale some of the tension growing in your body.

Is he going to wait for you to talk on your own or will he ask you about it first? You hope that he’ll give you the chance to bring it up on your own, but knowing him he’ll ask- “So…are you ready to talk about earlier?”

You snort humorlessly. “Of course he asks,” you grumble under your breath.

“What?”

“Nothing…” you grunt. You take in a deep breath to prepare yourself before turning to face him. You can’t hide it from him forever, and he’s here ready to listen to whatever you have to say. You let go of his hand so that you can think clearly. “Someone knows,” you start bluntly. “Someone found out about us and have pictures. They aren’t clear, but the fans have them…have had them for a few days now, and they’re going to figure out it’s you. I’m saying this because there has already been some speculation. Threats have already started to come in.

“My…my job is on the line if I can’t make this disappear. If they figure out that it’s you, then your entire group is on the line, it’s- all of it is just looking really bad.”

His lips jut out and his eyes narrow. “Anything else?”

“Uh…”

“First of all…this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not one of the popular members so it doesn’t matter if they find out that it’s me. I can take the mean comments as long as they aren’t doing anything to you or anyone else. Besides no one would care for long, it would pass within a week-”

“Shut up,” you interrupt unable to let his words go unaddressed. “People love you. Your fans fucking love you. You might not see it, but you have incredibly dedicated fans and they would do _anything_ for you. This would crush them if it got out. I won’t let you sit here and think that they wouldn’t give a shit that you were dating someone. Especially if it gets out that she’s a fucking employee in the company. That’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to you. You shouldn’t have to deal with this just because I couldn’t properly do my job. Couldn’t follow the main fucking rule not to sleep with any of the fucking idols.”

“Are you going to sit here and take on all of the blame? Are you serious?”

“Because it’s _my_ fault Jongdae! I don’t care if they figure out that it’s me anymore. I don’t care if I get fired or sued or whatever the hell else because I deserve it, but you don’t. I can’t- I can’t let you be attacked because of something that I could have prevented. It’s my fucking _job_ to do that, and if I can’t do that then what’s the point? Your fans…and your group and you shouldn’t have to deal with all of this drama just because I let myself…because I let myself…I don’t even know!” the words spill out and leave you breathing hard at the end.

“I don’t care. About the fans being upset. They’ll understand. I was the one who asked you out. I was the one who liked you first and kept bugging you until you liked me back,” he smiles fondly and you fight the twitching of your own lips. “I’m here for _you_. I signed up for this relationship just as willingly as you did and I don’t regret anything. I love _you_ okay? And no scandal or picture or threat is going to change that. No matter what happens, I love you.” he smiles ever so slightly and raises an eyebrow. “Have you gotten that through your thick head yet?”

You nod just a tiny bit. Not fully committed to your answer, but hearing his words enough to know that he means what he’s saying. You just don’t know how much _you_ believe in the words despite how genuine they sound.

“So,” he sits up straighter, grabs your hands in his and gives you a look that looks so confident and ready to face any issue the world is going to throw your way with a fucking smile on his face. “What’s the plan then, love?”

You snort despite the anxiety in your heart. “Love?”

“Mm,” he hums and grins, leaning farther forward. A giggle bubbles out of your chest. God _dammit_ why is he so good at defusing tension? You’d find it frustrating if you weren’t so use to having to do the exact same thing in your line of work.

Work. Fuck. What are you going to do?

The answer is sitting there, glaring at you as you try to avoid the easiest solution that there is. Some deep fear is keeping you from doing it. Fear of the future. Fear of having to start over. Fear of leaving behind something you’ve taken so long to establish.

You could quit.

You could turn in your resignation right now and find a new job elsewhere. Find a new job that has nothing to do with SM Entertainment. It would suck at first. It would suck a lot because as much as you hate working at SM you’ve gotten fond of the people there.

But if you quit…you don’t have to worry about backlash between two employees dating. You’d no longer have that guilt on your hands. There would also be a smaller chance of anyone catching the two of you together at work and discovering that you were the ones in the photo. The smaller the chance is of you and Jongdae being connected together.

It would also leave you with far less responsibility. It’s a dick move for whoever has to clean up your mess, but maybe your absence will diffuse the situation enough that it will pass and the pictures will be mistaken as two random people in New York. It’s easier for someone who isn’t connected to it all to think that it’s irrelevant.

You were too afraid to just let it pass quietly. Maybe it was your mistake.

“I’m going to quit,” you tell him after what feels like an hour of silence. Your decision is made. You’ll quit before it gets any worse and then vanish while the situation is diffused. You’re sure Nari or one of your subordinates could do a great job in your stead. When you look at him for his reaction, you see exactly what you expected. Disbelief.

“You can’t,” he whispers.

“I have to. If I do the repercussions won’t be as bad. It might even go away if I just disappear from it all for a while-”

“Y-you can’t…if you quit I-I…” his eyes are wide as he tries to come up with some excuse for why you should stay, but you both know this is the best option.

“Think of it this way,” you cut in with a smile. “I can finally get that break you all told me I needed.” The words come out a tad sadder than you intended, and it makes your entire reason sound pathetic in your ears. “It’s for the best, you know it as well as I do.”

“But you love your job,”

“Actually I don’t…I…listen. I’ve honestly been stressed since the day I started working for this company, and you didn’t make it any easier for me for a good amount of time.” He looks away from your eyes in shame. “I hate working for a large entertainment company and I hate having to deal with bullshit like lost fleshlights on trains…”

“Look I didn’t mean to-”

You laugh fondly at the softness in his voice. “But I’ve gained experience and formed relationships that I wouldn’t give back for anything in the world. It’s just…it’s time for me to go back to what I set out to do at the beginning of my career. I’ve lied and twisted the truth enough. I’m ready to start working somewhere where I feel like I’m making a positive difference. Somewhere where I’m not constantly stressed. This is just…pushing me in the right direction. Yeah…”

His frown doesn’t vanish in the slightest and you start to worry that he’s preparing for the longest rant you’ll ever hear in your life. You’re definitely not expecting him to (still frowning) say, “I’m proud of you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I’m proud of you…I don’t want you to leave but…I’m happy that you’re doing something that’s going to make you happy.”

Your heart swells and you jump forward to hug him tightly. “You already make me happy. I wouldn’t be nearly as happy as I am these days if it wasn’t for you, you loudass.”

“Hey-” you slap your hand over his mouth to keep him from saying anything.

“I mean it. Thank you…” you murmur. His eyes crinkle in delight as he wiggles his way out of your grasp to tackle you back on your bed. He doesn’t lean down and kiss you as you’d hoped he would. He seems distracted as he looks down at you in what seems to be a fresh sense of wonder and adoration. “Is there any reason you seem to like silently, and creepily might I add, looming over me? Or maybe you just love staring at me?”

He blinks and the look vanishes, replaced by pure mischievous glee. “Both,” he quips, lips curling up in that devilish grin that makes your heart race all over again. “Or…maybe I just love you.”


	21. 21...

“Admitting fault? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“If you come forward and admit to your mistake then you’ll have the trust of the public. It’s better to be honest with your public than to foster a false sense of honesty. They want transparency. We can work to rebuild your reputation so long as we don’t lose their trust. If you send out a memo within your company letting them know the deal, I’ll help you create a press release that you can send out for the journalists.”

Your client nods along to your words as if they’re his saving grace. “Okay. I’ll do that. I’ll be back tomorrow with an outline for an apology and an explanation. Thank you so much!” You smile and watch him leave the small conference room with an energy he didn’t have when walking in an hour ago. It makes you feel good.

When you started freelancing, you never thought you’d feel as relaxed as you currently do. Nearly a full year has passed since you sent that text to Nari telling her that you were mistaken and it wasn’t any of your idols at that theater. That you’d been the person in the photo, and that you’d lost your common sense at the time in panic. That it was your fault.

A year since you were called into one of the management offices and they told you that you were fired.

A year since you felt like your world was crashing in and that you’d made a huge mistake by partially revealing your part in what was almost a catastrophe.

A year since the rumors died down once it was revealed that it was just (former) staff at the theater and there was no reason to be up in arms.

A year since you decided to take a 3-month-long break and go traveling abroad for the first time as an escape from the suffocating feeling in your chest that wouldn’t go away. A dream you’d had when you’d first started college, but put aside once you’d found that job. Three months where you turned your phone off and deactivated various forms of social media as a means to “cleanse” yourself.

Whatever that was supposed to mean. It was torture to be honest.

That year…geez, you’re going to write that one down in your personal history books. The hardest year of your life you think. Change is never easy, and avoiding a huge scandal is even harder. But somehow, you survived. You made it out with minimal damage and _damn_ it feels good to be happy where you are. Working at your own pace, with clients of your own choice.

With a boyfriend you somehow managed to keep even after the world damn near exploded…and told him you’d be unreachable for a few months.

 _Oh right!_ You check your cell phone for the time, and panic. You’re going to miss the ending of his radio appearance if you don’t pull it up on your laptop now. He’d told you this was an important one, but you’d had this meeting scheduled before he told you about this; you couldn’t cancel – not when he’d probably tell you everything he said when he comes over to your new apartment later.

Disappointment and then a bit of fear are distinct in your chest when you go to the website where his appearance was being aired, only to see everyone wrapping up and taking pictures as music plays in the background.

You’re going to get an earful when he finds out you missed it.

Your phone rings as you’re rushing to pack up your stuff. As expected, it’s Jongdae. You don’t even get a hi or hello. “Did you watch?” he asks – seemingly out of breath.

“No…as soon as I got out of the meeting it was ending. Did I miss much-”

“No!” he nearly bursts your eardrum at the volume of his voice. Your mental alarms immediately go off. “Ha, I mean no nothing at all. Hey, do you want to come over?”

You pull the phone away from your head to look at it with narrowed eyes. “…your place?” you ask hesitantly. He grunts and you frown to yourself. “Uh…sure. Is something…going on?”

He clears he throat and you can hear the shuffling in the background as he moves around, nervously you assume. “No,” he laughs. “Why would you think that?”

“You’re acting weird Jongdae. That’s why.” You deadpan.

His scoff is unconvincing. “I’m not!” the whine tacked on is even less so. “But you’ll come? Kyungsoo is trying a new recipe and all of the guys want to uhm…meet you I guess?”

“They want to…they’ve all met me before…” you pause outside of your car at his words. Why would they want to meet you? You’ve met all of them almost a thousand times when you worked at SM as a PR manager. Hell, you talked to each of them nearly every week while working for them.

He hums in frustration, “Yeah but…that was…it’s _different_ now. That was as the scary publicist-”

“PR Specialist-”

“Okay whatever, _scary PR lady_. The point is they want to meet you…as my girlfriend.” he mumbles the latter end of his statement, but your chest blooms with heat.

A happy kind of heat that spreads throughout all of your body at the fact that he’s decided that meeting the members like this is a different thing. Months after you returned from your abrupt trip abroad, albeit, but you aren’t all that concerned with the amount of time that has passed. You were both latched on to one another at any given moment at your return, and the idea of meeting the members and each other’s parents hadn’t really crossed your minds. Not until recently at least.

You’d met his parents at a dinner they had at their home. Jongdae had finally gotten a break and his parents had been bugging him for months to bring you around. His mom was all too happy to meet you, showering you in compliments and coddling you as if you were her own daughter, while his dad would take any chance to learn about the things you liked and what Jongdae had managed to do to trick you into being with him. You immediately felt at home among his family.

He’d met yours when they’d made arrangement to come to town and visit you. You’d thrown together a meal and cleaned up your new apartment and even set up the guest room so they would have somewhere to sleep. Saying you were extremely stressed would be one hell of an understatement. You knew they would be nice, but they’re good at being nice and then turning around and revealing that they dislike him to you in private. Thankfully, everything went well and he charmed the fucking _pants_ off your parents. He flattered your mom, brought gifts, and every answer he gave to your dad’s questions had seemed perfectly crafted. You parents wouldn’t stop talking about him when he left, and always ask to speak to him when they call now.

You fell in love with him all over again.

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” you ask teasingly into the receiver. A smile spreads confidently on your face as you climb in your car and drive home to get changed, feeling giddy and light.

“You know what, what am I talking about? We don’t need to have dinner, I can just come over to yours and we can forget I even-”

“Jongdae?”

“…yes?”

“I’ll come over and have dinner with you and the guys. Calm down, yeah? It’s not like I’m meeting your parents for the first time.”

“You’re only this calm because my mom loved you when you met last week!”

A laugh bubbles from deep in your chest. “I know right? It sucks, your parents are going to ask about me for the rest of your life. Guess you’re stuck with me huh?”

“Shut up,” he mumbles childishly.

A red light approaches, and you shift in your seat as you mess around with your radio. “Why are you so worried anyway?”

“I just,” a sigh “I have a weird feeling about this. Everyone was acting strange on the radio show, and out of everyone Baekhyun said to invite you and I know they’re going to say weird shit so-”

“Hey?” you interrupt “Breathe.” You inhale as an example and smile to yourself when you hear him follow. “I’m not scared or worried. Did you forget I’ve still got more dirt on them than anyone else ever will? I can handle my own.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. I’ll come to dinner and meet them as your _girlfriend_ and everything will be fine okay?”

“Alright…I love you. Do you know that?

“I do, and I love you too. I’ve gotta go now. Call me with the details later on!”

* * *

Dinner happens just as you figured it would. You get thrown questions that are meant to seem normal, but you _know_ are being used to gauge how compatible you are with Jongdae. To see how far your buttons can be pushed outside of the office, to tease you and see whether you would fit within their already established dynamic. Loud laughs and conversation that comes easy helps you relax.

You’d never admit to his face that the idea of meeting the guys outside of the context of work might have freaked you out just a _bit_. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol end up making dinner, and you devour the meal gratefully.

You help Sehun clean off the table, after insisting that a good guest should help clean after a meal. Minseok joins not long after, and Jongdae begrudgingly assists _only_ after guilt refuses to let him to watch you clean while he sits.

“We should all go out for drinks,” Junmyeon offers. He pulls up a place on his phone that they often frequent. You’re told that it’s okay to join; they haven’t had any trouble with fans or paparazzi there.

Actually interested in the idea, you perk up and open your mouth to agree to a round (or two) of drinks. Jongdae, however, has opposing thoughts. “You guys go ahead, I’m going to take her home.”

Your mouth closes softly. “No, you should both come with us. We’re celebrating you, right?” You figured you weren’t being invited to this dinner just as a casual thing, but hearing Chanyeol bring up celebration, your interest is piqued. What were you all celebrating? You and Jongdae have been together for over a year. That’s nothing extremely remarkable. You feel a tingle under your skin at the thought of something have slipped by you so obviously, something having been unmentioned, _someone_ keeping you in the dark.

 _Did I miss something?_ You wonder if he would answer you if you telepathically sent the question to him. A look, that’s what you try to give Jongdae, but he avoids it like a professional. His hand find yours even as his eyes do the opposite. He squeezes. “I have something I need to talk to her about,” he says with an uneasy grin. The tingles intensify as you glare skeptically at his profile.

What is he up to? And why does everyone else look so…knowing? Eyes widen and then melt into meaningful grins all across the room. You feel remarkably left out of whatever conversation they seem to be having above your head.

All 8 bodies move as they grab their phones and things, and begin moving toward the door. Kyungsoo pushes Chanyeol out as the taller tries to say an unnecessarily long goodbye to the both of you. Yixing is all smiles as he pulls Baekhyun away with a wave to you, the other trying to slyly hang back and potentially overhear what the two of you are about to discuss. The door closes and silence fills the room.

Your chest feels heavy knowing that you have no idea what is about to happen. He pulls you to his and Minseok’s shared room and forces you to sit on the bed as he violently rummages through his closet.

Uneasiness. Nervousness. A fear of the unknown. All of it leads you to distractedly talk to fill up the space. “You really _don’t_ go out for drinks with them often. How can you be as noisy as you are, but dislike going out and drinking irresponsibly at any given chance? It doesn’t make any sense, you know? It’s just the like opposite of what people would expect-” talking most to yourself and for your own comfort at this point, you follow him with your eyes as he moves from the closet to the foot of his bed where you’re sitting and reaches beneath the bed and pulls something out.

He hides it behind his back before you can get a good glimpse of it, and you can almost _feel_ the nervousness radiating from _his_ body. Why are you both so nervous. From the way his lips are pursed and his posture is rigid. You finally take notice of the way he’s…kneeling.

You feel like you’ve been punched in the chest with how fast breath escapes you. “Jongdae…” your voice is terrified as you stare wide-eyed at the single knee on the ground. He blinks twice and looks down to his legs and splutters before standing up on both feet. His neck and ears redden as he awkwardly tries to backpedal.

“Shit- uh sorry- this- uh- I…fuck I mean-”

Relief comes all to soon as you realize you’ve just dodged a _huge_ bullet. Not that you wouldn’t _love_ to marry him. You would. Like… _really_ would, but it’s too soon. Way too soon. Neither of you are ready for that yet. You hold a hand to your chest and you try to get your breathing back to normal. Jongdae sits on the bed beside you and exhales heavily as he tries to do the same.

You look at one another and laugh softly at your reactions. You almost forget that he was hiding something from you until he brings it forward and holds in his lap. You look down at the small box and feel more confused than ever. If you hadn’t both just crushed the idea that he was about to propose, you would think the small box was that of an engagement ring.

He says your name tenderly, reaches out and grabs the hand that isn’t still clutching the spot above your heart and uncurls your fingers. He puts the box in your palm and closes his hands around yours before waiting for you to find his eyes once again.

“How crazy would it be if I told you I wanted to make our relationship public?”

And there goes the second heart attack of the day. You gape. “…public?”

He nods, closes his eyes as he gathers his courage, and looks at you with renewed confidence. “Yes. I know that it’s risky, and that you might not like the idea of it since you’re just now finding yourself again and everything. I don’t want to be the reason you no longer feel comfortable going out, but I still wanted to propose the idea.” The edges of his lips quirk up shyly. “I want everyone to know about us. About how serious we are.”

His hands move from the box to rest in his lap as he gives you a moment to think. You open the small box to find a ring that looks similar to the one he likes to wear. You bring it closer to your face and see your initials etched into the plain band.

A promise ring.

Your mouth drops as you look from the simple piece of jewelry to his expectant expression. You can see the nervousness slipping back onto his features.

You’ve both been through a lot. Too much you would argue. From constantly arguing and you threatening him with whatever stationary you could get your hands on, to holding each other beneath the covers as you imagine what your future together will hold.

Scandals. Kisses. Secret rendezvous. All of the good and bad things you have come to realize that he’s been there for it all. Whether he was the cause, or silently supporting you from the side, he hasn’t missed a moment in the time you’ve known each other. You don’t deserve him. You know that you don’t. You aren’t sure what it was about you that managed to blind him enough for him to pay you any attention.

But here you are. In his room. A ring in your palm, and a promise of the future tangibly in your grasp. You want to cry. To sob and run and maybe lock yourself up in your room long enough for you to come to your senses and realize this is far too perfect to be real.

He murmurs your name at the sight of your watery eyes and reaches out to touch your thigh. “I just…I have one question before I give my answer,” you mumble before swiping at your eyes and sitting the ring box in your lap. He leans forward. “Once upon a time, you said that you didn’t want me to worry about anything when I’m with you…do you still mean it? No matter what, you’re going to be there for me? That you’ve got me?”

He snorts and rolls his eyes playfully. “Of course. As if I’d even _think_ about letting you go at this point. You’re stuck with me, and I’m…hoping that I get to be stuck with you…” his tone softens as he subtly urges you to give him an answer.

You smile and slip the ring onto your finger, holding it up to give both of you a clear look at it. “I think going public sounds like a great idea.”

“Really!?” he shouts, standing up off of the bed only to lean down and hug you in a vice grip as he laughs excitedly. You’re pushed into the mattress as he leans in to connect your lips in a messy happy kiss. You can’t get the smile off of your own face. “God, I love you,” he whispers almost to himself.

You brush back the hair on his forehead with the hand the ring resides on and watch as his eyes flutter closed at your touch. “And no matter what happens from now on…I want you to know that I’ve got you too. No fan, no company, no news article is going to run me away. You’re stuck with me forever,” his eyes open and shine. You can see your future in those eyes. “I love you too. So much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! A lil fluffy, a lil angsty, just an easy time. Super cheesy I think, but I'm super cheesy and it's hard to keep it out of my writing lol.


End file.
